Rachel Singer (she/her/hers) is a multidisciplinary artist, teaching artist, and certified occupational therapy assistant. Her work in puppetry, sensory theater, physical theater, ritual, and dance explores the liminal places of barely tangible worlds where memory meets imagination. Much of her work is influenced by Jewish mysticism, nature, community, and her experience being disabled. Her goal is to collaborate in opening more space for cross-pollination, to exchange, develop and explore accessible techniques that enhance clinical and creative practices through the arts, wellness, and disability culture.
Rachel’s guiding questions this year: How can we do a better job integrating the arts and wellness without pathologizing people participating in the creative process? How can we elevate everyone’s experience in the room and create with each other, deconstructing the power dynamics re-enforced by society’s hierarchical models?
In Rachel’s 2024 3Arts/Bodies of Work Residency, she plans to merge her work as a theater artist and dancer with her work in occupational therapy and disability culture. The themes of her work center around practicing imagination and the creative process with individuals and within community settings. Rachel lives with non-apparent disabilities from neuroinvasive West Nile virus and learning disabilities. The world moves at a pace that many of us are unable to keep up with, sending a message that we, as a collective, are broken. Perhaps we are not broken, but rather live in a world that is sick. Through this work of shifting into a social model of disability we are reclaiming community, purpose, self-determination, and human connection.
Featured Artworks
Rachel Singer performing in Eve of a Great Remembering with Shadow Puppet Quill.
Shadow puppets on drum.
Watercolor forest for Multiplane Puppetry.
Fox puppet leaping through dreams.
Interior train pen and ink drawing.
