Gazed At:
Stories of a Mortal Body

Written & Performed by
Julie-Ann Scott-Pollock

Directed by Frank Trimble 

Plenary Performance at the International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry, Saturday May 22nd at 5:00 CDT/6:00 EST

Past Performances in Baltimore, Cucalorus Stage Performance (November 22, 2020) Maryland (November, 2019) Wilmington, NC (February, 2020)

Upcoming Performances in Reno, Nevada and Urbana, Illinois (pending Covid Travel Restrictions)

About the Show:

Based on the national award-winning book, Embodied Performance by Performance Artist-Storyteller-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. 

A Message from the Performer/Writer:

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.

Reviews from Past Performances:

Julie-Ann Scott-Pollock's Gazed At -Stories of a Mortal Body is a powerful, wise, funny and hopeful journey into an othered body's coming into self. This compelling performance exploring her own life-journey as a disabled person invites us all to consider our own embodied selves, partner our fragile places, and come to a new deeper knowledge of what it is to be human. Her performance will inform, embolden and delight audiences and leave them changed by the end of the piece. Tim Miller, Nationally award winning Performance Artist and author of A Body in the O

Scott-Pollock’s autobiographical one-woman show provides a nuanced and sophisticated investigation of disability and identity. Gazed At is equal parts poetry, pathos, and expert commentary. Scott-Pollock offers personal testimony that interrogates our understandings of disability across personal relationships, professional life and parenthood.

Ragan Fox, PhD Nationally Award-Winning Slam Poet, Big Brother Reality TV Star, and Professor of Performance Studies at California State University Long Beach.

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 with a focus 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 that perform annually. She also directs UNCW Performance Ethnography that 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 is also the recipient of the Donald H. Ecroyd Award for Outstanding Teaching in Higher Education. At UNCW she is the recipient of The Chancellor's Teaching Excellence Award, The Distinguished Teaching Professorship Award, The Distinguished Scholarly Engagement and Public Service Award, 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 4 little boys, Tony, Vinny, Nico and Theo. She would like thank Evan, her 4 boys, Tony, Vinny, Nico and Theo, Frank Trimble, Rick Olsen, David Pernell, and Robert Seagale for their support in making this performance happen. 

About the Director:

Frank Trimble is a professor in the UNCW Department of Communication Studies. He served as Department Chair [1994-2007] and then 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. Among his video projects are HIV-Stigma in Five Voices, Beneath the Airlie Oak, and PREA Training Video for Youth. Trimble is recipient of several honors as an author/composer, performer, director, and instructor, including the UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching and J. Marshall Crews Distinguished Faculty Award.