Output details

Ball & Other Funny Stories About Cancer

BALL & Other Funny Stories About Cancer: Illness, Disability and the Body over Time

BALL & Other Funny Stories About Cancer, published in 2012 (Oberon) features a critical introduction highlighting the affect of time on the reading of cancer narratives. Outputs related to BALL… include an artist DVD (LADA, 2012) featuring archival excerpts of three performances, a reflective introduction to Fun with Cancer Patients, an exhibition publication created for Fierce Festival, macBirmingham and Teenage Cancer Trust. A final output for the work is the multiple workshops and post-performance q&a sessions made in the context of Clod Ensemble’s Performing Medicine in various medical schools nationwide.

These outputs examine the body's changing relationship to an illness (a cancer, specifically) over time. Research was practice-led and drew on models from artists Bobby Baker and Teching Hsieh, performance theorists such as Jackie Stacey (1997) and Petra Kuppers (2003) and work on posttraumatic growth by Sue Gessler (2010).The introduction of time into work (particularly with the installation Carpe Minuta Prima, 2010) on illness reframes the conversation around cancer from being seen through an exclusively medical model and instead adopts a social model of situating the body, particularly a body that rejects hegemonic ideas of normality and consistency.

The research involved the reworking of scripts and consistent editing and framing of the performances in different ways and for different contexts. The work was presented for critical reflection at both national and international conferences (performance at Health Acts Conference, 2011 and Performance Studies International, 2010) and through an Arts Council England-funded national tour of the performance to Edinburgh Science Festival, Leicester Comedy Festival, Contact Manchester (see portfolio for full list).