We are deep in Fall! Time has lost so much meaning. There’s a lot afoot (awheel?) during this time. Stay tuned—the wheels are turning and there will be even more soon.
The online film premiere of DESCENT is coming up fast, premiering December 3 with a post-show (online) chat with us afterward. Details are below, I hope you will tune in and invite your beloveds. Your support is everything to us.
Softly yours,
Alice
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Image Description: A light-skinned Asian-American engineer with short black hair leans to the side and grins at the camera from behind a pair of purple-rimmed glasses. She is wearing two sleeveless tops: a bright pink one layered atop a black one patterned with splashes and dots of color. She “doesn’t look deaf,” whatever that means. The background is an orange-painted brick wall. A white woman with shoulder-length brown hair smiles at the camera. She wears a green v-neck shirt. Background is a white wall. The photos appear in white circles, with a purple background and white diagonal lines.
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We are so pleased to introduce our new Kinetic Light Fellows: Shoshana Freund, an emerging lighting designer, and Mel Chua, a hacker, engineer, scholar, and multimodal polyglot. Shoshana and Mel will be mentored by Kinetic Light artists Michael Maag and Laurel Lawson, respectively.
This pilot fellowship program is focused on advancing the disability arts and culture movement. It enables disabled artists, designers, technologists, and/or arts administrators to practice their craft alongside Kinetic Light artists, to develop their work in the context of disability art, and to support our groundbreaking work.
For the pilot program, Fellows were accepted through a nomination process. Future programs will be open, for application, to a broad range of artistic and technical disciplines. This fellowship is not designed for dancers or actors in an onstage capacity. Stay tuned for future program opportunities and please join us in enthusiastically welcoming Shoshana and Mel!
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Image Description: A moment from DESCENT. As the sky transitions from gold to amber to red, green, and blue, Alice Sheppard, a light-skinned Black woman, slides in a spider position on her stomach down the shiny ramp. The shadow of her wheelchair is visible beneath; her curly hair glows. Photo credit: MANCC / Chris Cameron.
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Online Premiere of DESCENT
Presented by Walker Art Center & Northrop
December 3-5
AD + ASL + Captions
Mark your calendar and please help us spread the word! This engagement includes the online film premiere of DESCENT (ticketed) and a curated screening of our short dance films (free) including Making Where Good Souls Fear, Revel In Your Body, and Wisp, the ground sighs.
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A Conversation with Kinetic Light
Presented by Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Available Through Dec 31
Captions + AD for most visual elements
A lively conversation with Alice Sheppard, artistic director, Laurel Lawson, dancer and lead technologist, and Michael Maag, lighting designer. They discuss the beginnings of the ensemble, how DESCENT came to exist, Wired inspirations, and even show (audio described) bloopers!
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Laurel Lawson recently premiered our newest project, Access ALLways, to more than 2,000 arts marketers, administrators, and leaders from across the U.S., Canada, and New Zealand. Access ALLways, is the result of urgent Kinetic Light work over the past few years, and represents a new, holistic way of understanding access in terms of equity and hospitality. If you missed this virtual conference, never fear!
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Image description: A blocky neon green and orange graphic accompanies a headshot of a woman with very pale skin and light short hair, looking archly at the camera and smiling with crimson lipstick. Text reads: "Disability isn't a dirty word. It's identity, culture, and context. Laurel Lawson, Boot Camp 2020".
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Image Description: “Disability Futures” in white text on a black background, above a grid of 20 black and white images of the Fellows. A colorful “glitch” design surrounds the images.
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Founded by Alice Sheppard in 2016, Kinetic Light is a project-based ensemble, working at the intersections of disability, dance, design, identity, and technology. Through nuanced investment in the histories, cultures, and artistic work of disabled people and people of color, we promote intersectional disability as a creative force and access as an aesthetic critical to creating transformative art and advancing the disability arts movement. Kinetic Light artists include Alice Sheppard, Laurel Lawson, Michael Maag, and Jerron Herman. For more info: https://kineticlight.org
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