Arts ” This/Ability” should contact Joanne Nesbit at (313) 747- 4418.

ANN ARBOR—Artists and non-artists will converge on the University of Michigan campus May 18-20 to discuss and examine the aesthetic, conceptual and metaphorical representations of disability and the practical and political issues of living daily with disability.

The interdisciplinary conference on disability and the arts will explore broad notions of disability and ability as these concepts relate to artistic creativity, performance and the intellect. Theorists and practitioners, therapists and aesthetes, architects, video and film-makers, performers, artists, scholars, musicians, literary and cultural critics, playwrights, the theater industry and independent scholars will participate in several concurrent dialogues during the conference.

A registration fee of $75 (if postmarked by May 10) is required in advance of the conference. A fee of $100 will be charged for registration postmarked after May 10. Registration fees include all conference panels, workshops and special events. A limited number of scholarships for registration fee only are available.

The conference will open with a fiction, memoirs and poetry reading, free and open to the public, beginning at 4 p.m. May 18 at the Shaman Drum Bookshop. The reading features Ann Finger, Kenny Fries and Elizabeth Clare. Other events open and free to the public, if space allows, include: 9:30a.m. May 19 in the Rackham Building’s Assembly Hall. The panel will include Anne Finger of Wayne State University, David Hevey of the BBC, Victoria Ann Lewis of the University of California-Los Angeles, and Cheryl Marie Wade of Gnarly Bones Productions. University, at 11:45 a.m. May 19 in Rackham’s Assembly Hall. –A film double feature will include ” When Billy Broke His Head…and Other Tales of Wonder” by Billy Golfus and David E. Simpson, and ” Proof,” directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse.

The films will begin at 8:30 p.m. May 20 in Studio Classroom I in U-M’s Art and Architecture Building.

Performances, to which the public is invited and for which there is an admission fee, will include the Diversabilities Theater production of ” The Swing,” written and directed by Chris Baty, opening at 8 p.m. May 18. Cheryl Marie Wade’s ” Sassy Girl: Memoirs of a Poster Child Gone Awry” will begin at 8:30 p.m. May 19. Both performances will be in the Arena Theater in the Frieze Building.

Art and performance works reflecting intersections of art, disability, and activism will run May 15-June 15 in the Slusser Gallery, Art and Architecture Building, and will feature work by Amanda Contopulos, Rosalyn Driscoll, Mary Duffy, Joseph Grigely, David Hevey, Tony Mendoza, Helen Nestor, Jo Spence, and Peter Williams.

“This/Ability” is sponsored by a number of U-M offices, schools, colleges, programs and individuals as well as community organizations and businesses.

To register or for more information about the conference, contact U-M’s office of Conferences and Seminars at (313) 764-4276 or through fax at (313) 764-1557, through the Michigan Relay Center at 1-800-649-3777 or by e-mail at stoliker@um.cc.umich.edu.