Gazed At: Stories of a Mortal Body
Written & Performed by Julie-Ann Scott-Pollock
Directed by Frank Trimble
About the Show:
Based on the national award-winning book Embodied Performance by Performance Artist, Storyteller, and Researcher Dr. Julie-Ann Scott-Pollock, Gazed At: Stories of a Mortal Body evokes the art of oral storytelling to explore the roots of our pervasive cultural fear of disabled, ill, and aging bodies. Relating her life with cerebral palsy, Scott-Pollock calls for human connection that embraces the inescapably mortal, vulnerable bodies for as long as we are here. View the Plenary performance for the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry here. It was internationally live-streamed from Leutze Hall at the University of North Carolina Wilmington on 22 May 2021. It was viewed in real-time from 4 continents (North America, South America, Australia, and Europe).
About the Writer/Performer:
Dr. Scott-Pollock is a Professor of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her research and performance work focus on Personal Narrative as Performance of Identity in Daily Life, focusing on stigmatized embodiment. She is the director of UNCW Performance Studies, which includes the UNCW Storytellers, UNCW Hawk Tale Players, and the Just Us Performance Troupe for Social Justice, which performs annually. She also directs UNCW Performance Ethnography, which staged narratives from her current research project, Seizing: Personal Stories of Living with Seizures.
Scott-Pollock is the recipient of the National Communication Association's Lilla A. Heston Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Interpretation and Performance Studies, Ethnographic Article of the Year Award, Best Ethnographic Book Award, and the Best Book Chapter Award. She also received the Donald H. Ecroyd Award for Outstanding Teaching in Higher Education. At UNC, she has received the Chancellor's Teaching Excellence Award, the Distinguished Teaching Professorship Award, the Distinguished Scholarly Engagement and Public Service Award, and, the Janet Ellerby Women's and Gender Studies Award. In her local community, she is the 2015 "Woman to Watch In Education Award" winner for Wilma Magazine: Wilmington's Successful Women was the 2018 YWCA Woman of Achievement for the Cape Fear region and a TEDx Airlie Speaker.
When she is not performing, researching, writing, or teaching, she enjoys spending time near the water with her husband Evan and their four little boys, Tony, Vinny, Nico, and Theo. She would like to thank Evan and her four boys, Frank Trimble, Rick Olsen, David Pernell, and Robert Seagale, for supporting this performance.
About the Director:
Frank Trimble is a professor in the UNCW Department of Communication Studies. He served as Department Chair [1994-2007] and then as Interim Chair in the Department of Theatre [2009-2011]. Trimble earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Speech Communication from Southern Illinois University. Primary teaching areas are organizational communication, performance studies, public address, and senior capstone. Research and professional activities encompass stage and screen acting, directing, choreography, script writing, music composition, and producing. Original musical plays include Fly Wright! - The Story of Two Brothers, On A Nutrition Mission!, Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol, and EXTRA! EXTRA! The Musical. His video projects include HIV-Stigma in Five Voices, Beneath the Airlie Oak, and PREA Training Video for Youth. Trimble is the recipient of several honors as an author/composer, performer, director, and instructor, including the UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching and the J. Marshall Crews Distinguished Faculty Award.
I was born with spastic cerebral palsy. Six operations over two decades transformed my body from hunched with turned-in feet that evoked stares of discomfort into a body with a limp that the untrained eye may mistake for a temporary injury. Living through multiple iterations of disabled identity has enabled me to understand what it means to live through a mortal body. Gazed At: Stories of a Mortal Body is my one-woman production that combines personal storytelling with visual art to engage audiences in the struggle to understand, accept, and ultimately embrace our inescapable mortality. This cultural shift allows us to create a space that adapts to and flexes around our forever-changing, vulnerable bodies.
