Title
Embodied Knowledge and Accessible Community: An Oral History of ‘Four Rehearsals and a Performance'
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2016
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | Dance | Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | History | Oral History | Performance Studies | Theatre and Performance Studies
Abstract
In this article we discuss how an oral history project emerged through our involvement in a collaborative, creative project at the University of Kansas called Four Rehearsals and a Performance (FRAP). FRAP utilized improvisation in dance and music, bringing together community members across ability to explore how knowledge and community are created. Our analysis explores themes of embodiment, community, and how participants experienced the space of FRAP. We first describe how FRAP became a project, and then we discuss how our oral history project emerged as part of FRAP. After providing specific examples of themes and experiences shared by our interviewees, we reflect on the successes and failures of creating a fully accessible performance space. We consider this oral history a “queer oral history” following Horacio Roque Ramírez and Nan Alamilla Boyd’s introduction in Bodies of Evidence, as it is a project with an “overtly political function and a liberating quality.” Both FRAP and our oral history project explored the politics of which bodies are valued and which bodies are seen as capable of creative production.
Copyright Statement
© The Authors 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Oral History Association. All rights reserved.
Recommended Citation
Lair, Liam Oliver and Mog, Ashley, "Embodied Knowledge and Accessible Community: An Oral History of ‘Four Rehearsals and a Performance'" (2016). Gender Studies Faculty Publications. 3.
https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/gender_studies_pubs/3
Included in
Dance Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Oral History Commons, Performance Studies Commons
Comments
This is the authors' version of an article subsequently published as
Lair, Liam Oliver, and Ashley Mog. “Embodied Knowledge and Accessible Community: An Oral History of ‘Four Rehearsals and a Performance.’” The Oral History Review 43, no. 1 (2016): 25-51. doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/ohr/ohw023.