The Politicized Disabled Body

Authors

  • Kaite O'Reilly Independent Artist

Abstract

This is a short excerpt from a public talk that the author gave as part of a residency at University College Cork in Ireland in the fall of 2018.

Author Biography

Kaite O'Reilly, Independent Artist

Kaite O'Reilly has won many awards for her work, including the Peggy Ramsay Award, Manchester Theatre Awards’ best play of the year, the Theatre-Wales Award and the Ted Hughes Award for New Works in Poetry, for Persians (National Theatre Wales). Widely published and produced, she works internationally. Productions in 2016/17 included Cosy at Wales Millennium Centre (The Llanarth Group), The Almond and the Seahorse in Estonia and Germany, and the Taiwanese production in Mandarin of The 9 Fridas, which transferred to the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre. In 2018 she co-created with Phillip Zarrilli richard iii redux, a one-woman show from a politicised disability perspective deconstructing the ‘othering’ of Richard III for a disabled actress, and premiering on International Women's Day. Her plays are collected in the critically acclaimed Atypical Plays for Atypical Actors and The ‘d’ Monologues, about disability, difference and diversity, both published by Oberon. A veteran of the disabled people’s movement, she received two Cultural Olympiad Commissions for In Water I’m Weightless, produced by National Theatre Wales as part of the official Olympiad Festival during the 2012 London Paralympics/Olympics. In 2003/06 she was AHRC Creative Fellow at Exeter University, developing ‘Alternative dramaturgies Informed by a Deaf and disability Perspective.’ This work has continued as part of Kaite’s fellowship at the international research centre ‘Interweaving Performance Cultures’ at Freie Universitat in Berlin (2012-18), where she is reflecting on her practice between hearing culture and Deaf culture, disability culture and ‘mainstream’ culture. A leading figure in the UK’s disability arts and culture, she is patron of DaDaFest.

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Published

2019-01-21

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 3 (2018): Performance and Bodies-Politic

Section

Forum

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