Improv and the Angel
Disability Dance, Embodied Ethics, and Jewish Biblical Narrative
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 14760432 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Julia Watts Belser (0000-0003-0354-4962, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 443-469 |
| Publication date | 2019-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Religious Ethics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0384-9694 • E-ISSN: 1467-9795 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/jore.12283 |
| OpenAlex | W2967086727 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 29 |
Disability dance lays claim to the provocative possibilities of the disabled body, raising profound questions about the politics of art, affect, and embodiment. For scholars of religion, disability dance is a powerful—and as yet unrecognized—site for probing the sacrality and ethics enacted in disability culture. This article brings the biblical tale of Jacob and the angel into conversation with a contemporary performance, “The Way You Look (at me) Tonight,” an intimate duet between choreographer and performer Jess Curtis and Clare Cunningham, an internationally acclaimed dancer who explores the artistry of lived disability experience. Using dance as a hermeneutic invitation to draw out ethical insights into risk, consent, and intimacy, I offer a disability‐sensitive reading of Genesis 32—reading the angel as a body whose presence attests to the brilliant shock of disability difference and probing the psychic and somatic transformation that unfolds when Jacob comes into kinesthetic contact with disability and the sacred
Aesthetics · Art · Conversation · Dance · Disability studies · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Literature · Mainstream · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Psychic · Reading (process · Sociology · Theology · Communication · Disability Rights and Representation · Ethics and Legal Issues in Pediatric Healthcare · Gender Studies · Law · Medicine · Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies · Philosophy · Psychology
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The Case for Conserving Disability
Violence, Disability, and the Politics of Healing
Crip Theory
The Epic of the Patriarch
Beyond Slavery
Embodying the Monster
Formations of the Secular
Asé and Amen, Sister
Vital Wheels
What Bodies Know About Religion and the Study of It
The Church of Baseball, the Fetish of Coca-Cola, and the Potlatch of Rock 'n' Roll
Bending Over Backwards
The Third Pillar
Queering the Crip or Cripping the Queer
My Body, My Closet
Why Disability Studies Needs to Take Religion Seriously
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |