Disability and the Sacred

While disability performance is often understood as a resolutely secular practice, this article suggests that part of the potency of disability arts often lies in the cultural work of claiming disabled people’s lives as sacred. In the acclaimed solo performance Guide Gods , disabled performer and choreographer Claire Cunningham draws upon extensive field research with diverse religious practitioners to examine the complex relationship between disability and religion. Through movement artistry that amplifies “an ethics of regard,” Cunningham draws the audience into a generous and generative encounter with the lives of religious practitioners—a process she parallels with the experience of developing deeper intimacy with disability. While Cunningham’s artistry critiques the harm done by religious discourses that link disability with sin, karma, or compulsory healing, she also complicates the one-dimensional lens through which disability activists have often viewed religion. Her work illuminates striking similarities between religious and secular-scientific practices of scrutiny and bodily evaluation. Through movement artistry that asks audiences to feel the visceral impact of such disregard, Cunningham advances a powerful counterclaim that disability is a vital site of creativity, adaptation, ingenuity, and unexpected beauty.