The Dance of the Double Amputee

Lisa Bufano is a bilateral below knee and finger amputee, and an accomplished dancer. Equipped with stilts, table legs, jogging prosthetics, or stripped of them all and writhing on the floor, her dances are meant to express the discovery of her natural movement as a truncated body.

Through performance, Lisa will explore themes such as the conspicuousnature of possessing a deformed body in public, achieving acceptancethrough merit, the universal human desire for comfort, lifestylemodifications inherent in living with prosthetics and the quest toevolve para-human abilities through technology.

There's a video of her queen ann table leg dance here, as well as snippets of her performances without prosthetics. While I am always fascinated by the physical versatility of the missing leg, I feel Bufano's performances lack zest. She seems to perform in a shoegazer sort of way, moping and tight-lipped even while her body performs beautiful contortions.

Artist Takes Inspiration From Amputation [NPR]

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