“What the Body Can Do”: Creating Space for Critical Hope through Affective Encounters with a Different Kind of Otherness

Abstract

My aim here is to use the notion of critical hope as a lens for exploring how a dramaturgy of Affect can create spaces for challenging the on-going marginalization resulting from the intersection of disability, race and access in the context of South Africa's much-lauded “inclusive” constitution. Given that the body, especially the black and disabled body, has been seen as a site marked by physical and structural violence, a focus on what the body can do, rather than how it is seen, has particular relevance for exploring the work of Unmute, the first integrated dance company in South Africa to incorporate differently abled dancers. This discussion will take into account the effects generated by the affective performance techniques employed, as well as the discomfort experienced by spectators when familiar perceptions are disrupted. It will be argued that these disruptions have a liberatory dimension in that they can trigger cognitive shifts which are productive for conceptualizing critical hope.