Even when performing solo Alice Sheppard arrives as an ensemble (and the ensemble comes for her too). An occasion for commotion, this piece’s chorus of motions is intended to be felt as much as anything else. Sheppard is here to stage scenes in excess of joy or equilibrium so that we may follow her into a crip love so deep it doubles down on the very notion of dance. Her choreography will overtake you there on your way to Where Good Souls Fear by rotating your revolutions and then some.

Where Good Souls Fear is an investigation of excess and minimalism, provoking questions about who or what is too much. Ranging through lyrical floorwork to an explosion of furious movement, Good Souls challenges what we think we know of propriety for black women. Sheppard’s choreography is a rigorous excavation of body, disability and various mobility technologies.

Alice Sheppard saw Homer Avila, a disabled dancer, perform in 2004. Avila dared her to take a dance class. She did, and she loved moving so much that she resigned her academic professorship at Pennsylvania State University in order to begin a career in dance. Alice creates movement that challenges conventional understandings of disabled and dancing bodies. Engaging with disability arts, culture, and history, she attends to the complex intersections of disability, gender, and race by exploring the societal and cultural significance of difference. Alice is the founder and artistic lead for Kinetic Light, a project which shows how mobility – literal, physical, and conceptual – is fundamental to participation in civic life.

Music by Dan Wool. In performance video by Dahkil Hausif.

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There is photography, video and audio documentation of this performance, available below. The video and audio feature a short excerpt of the performance. To request to view/hear the full performance, please contact us or the artist directly.

The video features live audio description recorded at the performance.

The full video documentation (not publically available) also features live American Sign Language interpretation and captions in English.

All documentation is released under Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial – No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND).