“I really love turning into this sort of four-legged creature. All the little places that you can wedge the crutch really right into a corner or into a crack. In Scotland, we’d say nooks and crannies. And I get so lost in that sort of play… when the ground really becomes… my companion.”
Claire Cunningham

What is the choreography of crip* navigation? The wide compass of crip knowledge? What are the maps we would draw? Of place, scale, time, energy? What can be learned from those of us who reach for the ground through crutches, as 4-legged creatures…

In this new solo from one of the UK’s most acclaimed and internationally renowned disabled artists, Claire Cunningham returns to the Lilian Baylis Studio to examine the act of journeying itself, drawing comparisons with the world of mountaineering and inspiration from Gustav Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer), re-engaging with her past as a classical singer to reframe our vision of journeying, craft, and outdoor encounter through a crip lens.

*crip is a political and cultural identity embraced by some disabled individuals

Header image © Sven Hagolani

A Claire Cunningham Production. Co-commissioned and co-produced by Mousonturm Frankfurt, No Limits Festival Hong Kong, Next Festival Kortrijk, HAU Hebbel am Ufer & No Limits Festival Berlin, Kammerspiele Munich, Sadler’s Wells London and Dampfzentrale Bern. Created as part of the Einstein Strategic Professorship „Choreography, Dance and Disability Arts“ at the HZT Berlin.