Event Type : Community

Available for viewing online, this selection of short films curated by Alice Sheppard (with assistance from curator Michael Walsh in the Walker’s Moving Image department) is focused on arts and disability. Featured in the program is Kinetic Light’s own riveting Revel In Your Body (filmed in an ATL parking garage), which captures the artists’ stunning choreography in slow motion to reveal the joy of flight on wheels. The program also features several short films from the Walker’s collection. FREE and open to the public upon registration.

Access: Audio Description & Captions for Revel In Your Body and Making Where Good Souls Fear; Human Radio; Valentin de la Sierras; Trio A; Wisp, the ground sighs ASL for Making Where Good Souls Fear; and Wisp, the ground sighs

Image Description for promo image: Alice Sheppard and Laurel Lawson fly through a cloudless blue sky with arms outstretched and their wheelchair wheels spinning. You don’t see the ground, only sky. They both wear metallic silver and gold, and Laurel has a wide, peaceful smile. Photo by Safety Third Productions, Shimmy Boyle.

Join in a conversation about disability aesthetics and design for performance: learn about Kinetic Light’s work in production, projection, movement, and software design. Laurel Lawson, Atlanta-based choreographic collaborator, dancer, designer, and engineer with Kinetic Light will be in conversation with Michael Maag, production, lighting and projection designer for Kinetic Light. ASL and captioning will be provided.

Image Description for promo image: As the sky transitions from gold to amber to red, green and blue, Alice Sheppard, a light-skinned Black woman, slides in a spider position on her stomach down the shiny ramp. The shadow of her wheelchair is visible beneath; her curly hair glows. Photo credit: MANCC / Chris Cameron

Under the artistic leadership of “innovator in disability arts” (The New York Times), Alice Sheppard’s Kinetic Light enables new understandings of the moving world. Dancers Laurel Lawson (ATL-based) and Alice Sheppard perch, swoop, and soar on a striking custom-built ramp of curves and peaks in DESCENT in this recorded version making its online premiere. This visually stunning imagining of a queer, interracial love story of mythical figures Venus and Andromeda is a transformative ride testing the limits of what dance, beauty, and disability appear to be. Lighting Design by Michael Maag.

“Sheppard and her collaborators are reimagining how we experience the form, and at the same time, making striking new shapes that challenge our limited ideas of what dance—and dancers—look like.” (Albany Times Union)

Official premiere launches Dec. 3 at 9ET/6PT, followed by a live Artist Talk via Zoom. The film will be accessible through midnight CST on Dec. 5th. Tickets are per household; student tickets available.

Access: Audio Description of the film ASL and captioning for the Artist Talk on Dec. 3.

Image Description for promo image: Alice Sheppard, a light-skinned Black woman with a crown of short curly hair, is crawling on her hands with her knees in Laurel Lawson’s footplate. Laurel, a white woman, is arching her back on the ground as she is dragged along the floor. A sunset appears behind them. Photo by MANCC / Chris Cameron