Katie L. O’Neill (MFA 2019) is a Mad mover, educator, and disability rights activist from New Jersey. Her practice coalesces the methodology of Labanotation and pedagogical approaches in movement therapy to explore invisible disabilities through bodily means. As an act of radical self-care, O’Neill’s choreographed process confronts deficits in reclamation and autonomy observed in the experiences of Mad and Sick folx, and offers a non-medicalized alternative to healing. She continuously revisits the phenomenon of disability passing to construct performances that recall the supernatural ephemerality of her madness, redefining the historical labels of “monstrosity” and “necromancy” indoctrinated in schizophrenic rhetoric. Through her solo and community engaged practices, O’Neill seeks to build spaces for diagnosed and undiagnosed people to encounter empowerment by developing language sourced from within.
HowToHoldAChangingFace, by Katie O’Neill & Adam McVicker
The (In)Visible Figure, performance still, 2019
"How To Hold a Changing Face", video still, collaboration with Adam McVicker, 2018
"Mania in Green", process footage, 2018
