The choreographic inspiration for Alice, Peter, & Dorothy is the result of a deep dive by Douglas Scott into the fantasy works Alice in Wonderland (1865) by Lewis Carroll, Peter and Wendy (1911) - often known as Peter Pan - by J. M. Barrie, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by L. Frank Baum.

Douglas and the dancers look at the novels through a disability-centric lens. What rhetoric is found in the novels that minimalizes and/or normalizes the visual or invisible mark of disability? For example, it has been strongly suggested that the Tin Man of Oz was a character influenced by Civil War amputees and Peter Pan’s Captain Hook is an amputee with a prosthesis. The presence of many fantastical creatures that are found within the novels (mermaids, the Mad Hatter, the residents of the Dainty China Country, et al) are representations of the ‘other’ who are living in a position of irreconcilable Otherness, and accepted in their fantasy world. However, in reality, they would be socially ostracized and viewed as perpetually incapable of belonging. The parallel to the lived experience of disability is striking.

We are excited to collaborate with Literary Consultant Dr. Elizabeth Wheeler, Visual Artist Jessica Elaine Blinkhorn, and Composer Sean Kelly in the creation of this new work.