Julia Watts Belser

The Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission St, SF, CA 94103. Register: access@thecjm.org

Julia Watts Belser brings disability dance into conversation with Jewish story to explore the creative potential of queer crip Jewish culture. She examines the biblical tale of Jacob wrestling the angel alongside a contemporary performance piece, “The Way You Look (at me) Tonight,” an intimate duet between two acclaimed artists: San Francisco-based choreographer and performer Jess Curtis and Clare Cunningham, a celebrated Scottish dancer whose work explores the artistic possibilities of her own lived disability experience. Using dance as an invitation to create disability midrash, she opens up a space to explore innovative readings of Jewish story that center the ethical insights, political sensibilities, and luminous sacrality that emerge out of queer disability communities.
Julia Watts Belser will be introduced by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Professor of English and Bioethics at Emory University, and co-director of the Emory College Disability Studies Initiative (DSI).
Following Julia Watts Belser’s lecture, there will be a Q&A discussion.