she/her/hers

Maggie Bridger is a sick and disabled dance artist and scholar interested in creating work that uses and reimagines pain through the creative process. She is deeply connected to and informed by the disability arts and culture movement and the development of “disability aesthetics,” a term used by disabled artists to articulate the particular ways that disability appears in the content, form and process of work. 

Unfolding Disability Futures, 2022 | Photo Credit: Amanda Lautermilch

The Project

HCL is supporting Maggie as a Fellow for the final development and launch of two intertwined projects: a dance work titled Scale; a lab for early career disabled dance artists titled LabE. The premiere of Scale is planned for HCL at Mana, or at Experimental Station. The LabE is planned as remote residency for Experimental Station, and builds on a prototype organized by HCL and Maggie in 2022 for Chicago Cultural Center’s Learning Lab.

LabE, for Experimental Station, is open to Chicago-area dance artists who self-identify as Deaf/deaf/hard of hearing, sick, mad, neurodivergent, disabled or living with a disability, and/or who have lived experience with disability or impairment. The space is particularly meant for those interested in exploring disability and impairment-informed modes of practicing dance.

It is organized by Maggie as monthly cohort meetings for addressing particular needs of the community such as studio access, development and production support, and platforms promoting disabled dance artists’ visibility and professional careers. In addition to cohort meetings, the community uses the space for workshops, work-in-progress showings, salons, and social gatherings. HCL plans to support selected LabE events as part of the Open Labs series.

Scale, choreographed and performed by Maggie with co-creators Robby Williams and Alex Neil-Sevier, builds on the discoveries from past projects where Maggie utilized experiences of pain as a creative source. This work asks how the ways we perceive, measure and care for pain in the bodies and minds of others can be generative, harmful, or both. Additional collaborators include Reveca Torres (visual art and costume design), Shireen Hamza (music), and Joán Joel and Jordan Brosn (ASL consulting and collaboration). The premiere of Scale is anticipated for May 2023.

Learning Lab, Scale, In-Process Showing, 2022 | Photo Credit: Mallory Yanhan Qiu

About the Artist

Maggie Bridger is a 2022 City of Chicago Individual Artist Program grantee, and PhD candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the Department of Disability and Human Development. She is a co-founder of the Inclusive Dance Workshop Series at Access Living, for which she and her project partner received a 2021 Chicago Area Albert Schweitzer Fellowship. She was part of the inaugural cohort of the Dancing Disability Lab at UCLA and serves on the planning committee for CounterBalance, Chicago's annual integrated dance concert.

About the Key Partner

Access is central to the creative process for Maggie; audio description, captioning, and other access tools are an essential aesthetic part of her making dance. In 2023 HCL expands its new partnership with Bodies of Work, a program of the Department of Disability Art, Culture and Humanities at University of Illinois-Chicago, to sustains Maggie’s final work development of Scale and LabE.

Media Coverage

Curating a Space of Care: a response by Lauren Sheely | Performance Response Journal
June 2, 2023

Events with HCL

Maggie Bridger | LabE: Mapping Accessible Dance in Chicago | Sunday, February 5, 2023

Maggie Bridger | Lab E: Training Group | Sunday, March 5, 2023

Maggie Bridger | Lab E: In-Process Showing | Sunday, April 2, 2023

Maggie Bridger | Scale | Saturday, May 13, 2023

Maggie Bridger | Lab E: Writing Group | Sunday, May 28, 2023

Maggie Bridger | Lab E: Training Group | Sunday, June 4, 2023

Lab E: In-Progress Showing with Tango 21 | Sunday, August 20, 2023

Lab E: Training Group | Sunday, September 17, 2023

Lab E: Social Gathering (In-Person) | Sunday, October 15, 2023

Lab E: Social Gathering (Online) | Sunday, November 5, 2023

Fusion | Sunday, December 3, 2023