This workshop introduces Mad performance creation processes that center madness as a site of generativity. For some context, when I refer to “Mad” creation, I am asking what it means to create art while considering the concept of ‘mental illness’ and mental distress as a sociopolitical issue as well as an embodied encounter. This workshop will prioritize the anti-oppressive trauma-informed movement practices of choice, consent and collaboration. We will engage with internal/external sensory and political experiences to generate movement. We will also embody resistance, retreat, reclamation and re-imagination as modes of Mad performance creation.

Bio:

Lindsay Eales studies, choreographs, and performs integrated dance, as well as crip Mad video and performance art. As co-artistic director of CRIPSiE (and formerly iDANCE), she has spent the last twelve years creating vibrant movement communities that prioritize the generative possibilities of madness, disability, and queerness. Lindsay recently completed a PhD on Mad performance and anti-oppressive trauma-informed movement practices. Lindsay’s artistic and research interests emerge from her lifelong passion for dance, her training as a certified occupational therapist, her experiences with madness, and her involvement in communities of activism and social justice.