Claire Cunningham & Jess Curtis The Way You Look (at me) Tonight

About the Artists

Claire Cunningham is a Glasgow-based performer and creator of multidisciplinary performance. Originally trained as a classical singer, Cunningham is an internationally renowned self-identifying disabled artist. Her work is often rooted in the study and use/misuse of her crutches—exploring the potential of her specific physicality with a conscious rejection of traditional dance techniques and the societal pressure to alter her movements or aesthetic to resemble that of a non-disabled body. Cunningham's work combines multiple art forms and ranges from intimate solo shows, such as Give Me a Reason to Live (2014)—inspired by the work of Dutch medieval painter Hieronymus Bosch and the role of beggars/cripples in his work—and the full-length show Guide Gods (2014), which looks at the perspectives of major faiths toward disabilities, to the large ensemble work 12, made for Candoco Dance Company.

Cunningham was Artist in Residence at the Women of the World Festival at the Southbank, London, and the Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queens, and in 2016 at Perth International Arts Festival, Australia, and Associate Artist at Tramway, Glasgow.

Jess Curtis is a founding member of the 1990s collective Contraband, and has created a body of work that ranges from the underground grunge of Mission District warehouses with Contraband (1985–1994) to the formal refinement of European State Theaters with Jess Curtis/Gravity (2000–ongoing). He was a member of experimental French circus project Compagnie Cahin Caha, Cirque Batard (1998–2002), and cofounded the extreme performance collective CORE (1994–98). Curtis has received multiple Isadora Duncan dance awards, a California Dancemakers Fellowship (2001), and the Homer Avila Award for innovation in physically inclusive dance (2011). He is a writer, advocate, and community organizer in the fields of contemporary dance and performance and teaches individuals of all abilities throughout the United States and Europe. He has been a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of the Arts in Berlin.

Alva Noë is a writer and philosopher living in Berkeley and New York. He is the author of Action in Perception (2004), Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness (2009), Varieties of Presence (2012), and, most recently, Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature (2015). He is a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also a member of the Center for New Media and the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences. Noë is a 2012 recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a weekly contributor to National Public Radio's science and culture blog 13.7 Cosmos and Culture.