(Dis)Quiet in the Peanut Gallery: A Transformative Performance Ethnography on Integrated Dance
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Abstract
Disability is one of a myriad of ways in which difference, marginalization, and solidarity shape integrated dance communities, and their art. Dance can layer our understandings of the emotional and political impacts of these experiences and practices, in ways that words alone cannot. In this thesis, I trace how twelve dancers explore social justice through a co-constructed integrated dance. I introduce integrated dance, the transformative paradigm, arts-based research, performance ethnography, and our dance community (Chapter 1 & 2). This community practices social justice through check-ins, consensus, and care-sharing processes (Chapter 3). From these processes, we developed a performance: (Dis)quiet in the Peanut Gallery (Chapter 4). I draw together focus group discussions and critical disability theory to examine this performance in relation to social (in)justice (Chapter 5). For this group, integrated dance is a form of critique, a strategy for survival and activism, and a way to enact complex utopias.