Petra Kuppers, Women's and Gender Studies, Professor of English Language and Literature, Theater and Dance, Art and Design, has recently received two external grants, a career award, a research award, and multiple awards and honors for her book, Eco Soma: Pain and Joy in Speculative Performance Encounters (2022, University of Minnesota Press).
The first external grant is a two-year Just Tech (Justice and Technology) Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council to work on her Crip Cave/Planting Disabled Futures community dance meets virtual reality project. The project will examine how virtual/extended reality (VR/XR) technologies can address questions about access, community, sensuality, environmental poetics, and the futures of queer/crip play. Petra would like to acknowledge the amazing Remi Yergeau, who encouraged her to apply for this opportunity.
The second external grant Petra received is the Environmental Arts Grant from Anonymous Was A Woman/NYFA, awarded by Anonymous Was A Woman (AWAW) and The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). Each grant is up to $20,000 and will support environmental art projects led by women-identifying artists from the United States and U.S. territories. Petra's project, Turtle Disco’s Crip Drifts: Michigan consists of staging four of her ongoing Crip Drift performance in different parts of Michigan. Stay tuned for more news on this exciting project!
In August, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) awarded Petra the 2024 Leadership in Community-based Theatre and Civic Engagement award giving her the title “Visionary Trailblazer.” The Association for Theatre in Higher Education honors individuals or theatre companies that have demonstrated sustained commitment and a significant impact in the field for a minimum of ten years. Read the full announcement on the ATHE website.
One of Petra's professional organizations, Performance Studies international (PSi), gave her the Calgary Artistic Research Award 2024, for her Crip/Mad Archive Dances Performance Lecture at this summer’s conference. The Calgary Artistic Research Award celebrates outstanding contributions of artist-researchers to the annual conference of PSi with a monetary prize of $500.
Last, (but certainly not least!) Petra's book, Eco Soma: Pain and Joy in Speculative Performance Encounters, received multiple awards and distinctions. It was named a ATHE Book Prize Winner with Distinction for Innovative Achievement 2024. This award recognizes books that demonstrate complex and critical engagement with dramatic texts, performances, histories, theories, practices, and/or pedagogies. It also received honorable mentions from the American Society for Theatre Research Book Award (ASTR), from the National Dance Educators' Association Book Award (NDEO), from the British Theatre and Performance Book Award (TaPRA), and the Dance Studies Association Book Award.
Congratulations on these amazing accomplishments, Petra!
