At the same time, many disabled women and women of size use waterĪerobics and aquatfitness as accessible paths to self-care. I know many men hold these stories, too,īut they do not so quickly share them with me, gender scripts being what Theįreeflow of water has often hindered clear sight of the cruelty of division.Įvery woman/gender-queer person I know has stories of bullying and teasingīy the pool side, getting inculcated into the regimes of self-governance,ĭiet culture, and body policing. Water can be a site of conscious and unconscious political articulation. We are not all equal in the water – unfettered, free, floaty. She is holding another white woman in herĪrms, one hand under head, one under knees, moving the spine, attentive. Stephanie Heit Image Description: Petra during her formal Watsu training, in a pool inįlorida, in her exam session. 1: Petra holding a participant while giving Watsu. Meandered, wafted, diluted, and concentrated as medium meets bodymind. These pages of freewriting, the questions above found answers - often It took a familiarĪnd much loved mechanism to get me going again: the freewrite, in company,Ī staple of the creative modalities of the international artist collective I do in landed dance work to capture images and thoughts. The pool is incompatible with my usual quick dash to the notebook, something In intense swimming, in my inability to write after hours in the pool. I had experienced a form of ungrounded voicelessness Not write, my nervous system literally too floaty and too tired to putįingers to the keyboard. How can I engage disability studies and trans studies fields in my witnessing?ĭuring a week of Watsu training, in six daily hours in the water, I could.Can I experience spaces of gender fluidity and desire formation in aquatic.How will issues of body shame, body policing, and sensuality emerge in.What kind of bodies surround me in the pool?.How do people experience their bodies? How do they move?.Who will be my co-workshop participants?.Some of the questions I hoped to engage in my explorations Of disability, race, class, body comfort, and age, and to write a creative Way through a training session with an attention to the lived experiences User engaging in self-care and community health. Of size, complexly identifying as queercrip, a life-long dancer, and wheelchair Set out to write about my experiences as a middle-aged white disabled woman In fall 2016, I began training in water-based movement. Many years, my work has been at the intersection of movement and writing,įeminist somatics and politicized bodies. Performance studies lens to look at women’s experiences in aquafitness. The day of water work chronicled in this essay emerges from my (Petra’s)Įxploration of water-based movement training, using a women’s studies and Of the flows and undertows of somatic practice. Through shared swimming, conversation, and writing, they became conscious The teamĬonceptualized their self-care in a range of different ways: as political,Īs queered women’s labour, as deeply personal, and as forcefully communal. Kuppers’ initial queercrip aqua-fitness research, and from a series ofĬommunal post-swim free-writes in which the group meditated on boundariesĪnd contiguity, on contagious laughter and demonstrative peace. It follows the thoughts of four disabilityĬulture scholars and artists who went swimming together and reflected onĪrtful methods of public somatic presence. Public Intimacies: Water Work in Play An essay hosted by Petra Kuppers, with VK Preston, Pam Block,Īnd Kirsty Johnston Petra Kuppers, Professor, University of Michigan petra umich edu VK Preston, Assistant Professor, University of Toronto vk preston utoronto.ca Pamela Block, Professor, Stony Brook University pamela block Kirsty Johnston, Associate Professor, University of BritishĬolumbia Kirsty Johnston ubc.ca Abstract
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |