UC Irvine

Although some conversations are taking place about dance practitioner accessibility as related to disability, many of the methods, tools, and guiding philosophies proposed by this body of work focus on molding disabled practitioners into existing conventions of dance technique, performance practices, and aesthetics. This framework results in creative practices that operate despite, not because of, disability. This limited view of disability is exemplified in traditional applications of Audio Description for dance, where, despite being an accessibility measure for disabled people, Audio Description—and by extension, disability—is treated as a barrier to overcome rather than as an artistically valuable contribution. Through the production of two new choreographic works, this thesis explores how Audio Description can be used as a generative choreographic tool that also centers disability in choreographic process. The first choreographic process explored Audio Description as a movement generator, and the second additionally explored Audio Description as a generator for narrative and environmental content. In centering the use of Audio Description as a generative choreographic tool, these choreographic processes facilitated Disability Justice-informed access for the artistic collaborators and centered disability itself toward the potential realization of a disability aesthetic in creating and presenting concert dance works.