Chronic pain, choreography and performance: practices of resilience

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on resilience and chronic pain in the context of choreography and performance. Through critically-creatively reflecting on my practice-as-research project, Ecologies of Pain, I explore practices of resilience that emerge from turning towards and working creatively with chronic pain. I draw from two strands of the performance research – collaborating with disabled artist Raquel Meseguer and devising a new autobiographical solo performance, Pain and I. Taking disability studies as my critical framework, I think through a cripped politics of resilience, where chronic pain bodies are understood as valid, valuable and skilled.

KEYWORDS:

• Chronic pain
• crip
• disability
• choreography
• resilience

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland: [Grant Number Research Incentive Grant].

Notes on contributors

Sarah Hopfinger

Sarah Hopfinger is a practitioner-researcher with specialisms in ecological performance, disability dance and intergenerational practice. She creates live art, choreography and performance, has been commissioned by UK organisations including Battersea Arts Centre and South London Gallery, and her research is published in leading journals including Performance Research and RiDE.