Lisa Bufano Explained

Lisa Bufano (October 20, 1972 – October 3, 2013)[1] [2] was an American interdisciplinary performance artist whose work incorporated elements of doll-making, fabric work, animation, and dance.[3]

Early life

Born to Louis A. Bufano and Elizabeth "Betty" Bufano in 1972 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Bufano graduated from Tufts University in 2003, and later from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (SMFA) in 2003.[4] [5] A competitive gymnast as a child[6] (and a go-go dancer in college), she became a bilateral below-the-knee and total finger-thumb amputee due to a life-threatening staphylococcus bacterial infection at the age of 21.[7]

Career

After losing her lower legs and most of her fingers and thumbs, Bufano began her performance and dancing career when a professor at the University of Linz doing research on the lives of amputees discovered her web page and offered her a stipend to perform in Vienna.[8] She toured from 2006 to 2010 with the AXIS Dance Company,[9] performing works variously choreographed by Victoria Marks, Joe Goode, and Kate Weare to audiences in Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, and Canada, and performed to a packed house at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts[10] in a program honoring fellow amputee and dancer Homer Avila[11] (featured in Modern Dance Videos)[12] as well as at the Baryshnikov Arts Center and Judson Memorial Church, among other venues.[13]

Her dance work typically incorporated a variety of prosthetics and props[14] (such as using wooden Queen Anne table legs as legs and arms),[15] but also included segments where her unadorned body was the focus of the performance.[16] According to Bufano she manipulated her body as a way to explore alternative locomotion (at age 34 she ran several miles a day on high-tech carbon fiber prosthetic legs), corporeal difference, her sexual identity[17] (an aspect of her work which was of particular interest to the artistic LGBT community),[18] and animation/manipulation, interests which led to many fruitful collaborations.[19]

Bufano listed among her influences medical drawings, historical wax models and dolls, and optical toys; flip dolls and paper dolls; the structural aspects of Japanese jointed dolls, Hans Bellmer's doll work, Louise Bourgeois' cell installations, and the animation of Jan Švankmajer and the Quay Brothers. One of her main projects was a white muslin dress which turned into a squid, for which she sewed thousands of detailed suckers. "She loved sewing sculptures made of fabric," her brother remarked in a remembrance. "She had a thing for the creepy-cute, the exotic, the bizarre. Things that were dark but also beautiful."

She explained her aesthetic and political goals when she claimed that:

She likewise explained during her time at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston:

She has had an artist residency at the Contemporary Artists Center, North Adams; and also at the 8th Street Air Program (2010), Boise, Idaho.[20] She was a Franklin Furnace Fund recipient in 2006–2007.[21]

Originally based in Boston, Massachusetts, and relocated to San Francisco, California in December 2011.[22]

Death and legacy

Lisa Bufano died by suicide on October 3, 2013, in San Francisco, California; no suicide note was found. Two months later, her brother reflected on the inexplicable nature of her death.

More than a year after her death, her work, along with that by Cara Levine, Shari Paladino and Sadie Wilcox, was included in Four Choreographies at the Worth Ryder Art Gallery in Berkeley, California.[23] A further retrospective was held Storefront Lab in San Francisco in 2015.[24]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: 2013 . Ms. Lisa Bufano - Obituary & Service Information . live . https://archive.today/20230409224843/https://vmpandco.store.helloflowers.com/obituaries/Lisa-Bufano/%23!/Obituary . 9 April 2023 . 12 November 2013 . The Sympathy Store by HelloFlowers.com.
  2. Web site: 28 October 2013 . Performance Artist Lisa Bufano: In Remembrance . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230405211542/https://www.sfweekly.com/archives/performance-artist-lisa-bufano-in-remembrance/article_646beb82-30d1-5ced-8e15-4680e3ded0b4.html . 5 April 2023 . 25 February 2021 . . en-US . Lisa "Louise" Bufano. October 20, 1972 – October 3, 2013..
  3. Web site: Shea . Andrea . 19 March 2007 . Artist Takes Inspiration from Amputation . live . https://archive.today/20230405211721/https://www.npr.org/2007/03/19/7728628/artist-takes-inspiration-from-amputation . 5 April 2023 . 29 March 2015 . . NPR.
  4. Web site: [Lisa Bufano (Bachelor of Fine Arts '03)] ]. dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20131005100513/http://www.smfa.edu/lisa-bufano . 5 October 2013 . School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
  5. Web site: Murray . Ginger . 28 October 2014 . Lisa Bufano: In Remembrance . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20141209124815/https://medium.com/freelance-writer-archives/lisa-bufano-in-remembrance-7c8bc83a420d . 9 December 2014 . 9 April 2023 . Freelance Writer Archives . en . Medium.
  6. Web site: Hustic . Deborah . 24 May 2008 . Lisa Bufano – the Spiderwoman . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20220808015923/http://www.body-pixel.com/2008/05/24/lisa-bufano-%E2%80%93-the-spiderwoman/ . 8 August 2022 . 12 November 2013 . Body Pixel.
  7. Web site: Shea . Andrea . Bufano . Peter . 24 December 2013 . Remembering Lisa Bufano, A Dancer Who Found Beauty In Amputation . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20221026042128/https://www.wbur.org/news/2013/12/24/lisa-bufano-remembrance . 26 October 2022 . 25 February 2021 . . en.
  8. Web site: Sadr . Esha . 17 May 2010 . Lisa Bufano from the series: On the Charm of the stigma . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20160603172401/https://www.flickr.com/photos/aaadish/5384753797 . 3 June 2016 . 29 March 2015 . . Flickr.
  9. Web site: 2019 . Lisa Bufano . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20220116102937/https://2019.bergenassembly.no/contributors/lisa-bufano-2/ . 16 January 2022 . 25 February 2021 . Bergen Assembly 2019 . en-US.
  10. Web site: 4 June 2007 . 'Phoenix Dance' (film) / Lisa Bufano (dance) . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100620125131/http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer/videos/?id=M3111 . 20 June 2010 . 29 March 2015 . The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts .
  11. Web site: Lisa Bufano - Watch Past Performances - 6/4/07: 'Phoenix Dance' (film) / Lisa Bufano (dance) . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20131101214155/http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer/artists/?entity_id=17636&source_type=B . 1 November 2013 . 12 November 2013 . The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts .
  12. Web site: Burbank . Linda . 27 August 2013 . Lisa Bufano . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20190211172538/http://moderndancevideos.com/lisa-bufano/ . 11 February 2019 . 12 November 2013 . Modern Dance Videos .
  13. Web site: 2006 . Extravagant Bodies Festival › Extravagant Bodies › Performances › Five Open Mouths . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230409222211/http://www.kontejner.org/en/projekti/ekstravagantna-tijela/ekstravagantna-tijela-3/performansi-6/pet-otvorenih-usta . 9 April 2023 . 9 April 2023 . Kontejner.
  14. Web site: Lev . Nadya . 15 September 2011 . Lisa Bufano: Dancer/Shapeshifter . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20220703000053/https://coilhouse.net/2011/09/lisa-bufano-dancershapeshifter/ . 3 July 2022 . 12 November 2013 . Coilhouse .
  15. Web site: Robinson . Beth . 5 June 2007 . Lisa Bufano . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20160120192512/https://strangedolls.wordpress.com/2007/06/05/lisa-bufano/ . 20 January 2016 . 29 March 2015 . Beth Robinson's Strange Dolls .
  16. Web site: 24 January 2007 . (Two) Bodies of Work - Dancing . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20160326034552/http://www.similinton.com/blog/?p=11 . 26 March 2016 . 12 November 2013 . Disability Culture Watch .
  17. Web site: Rebecca . Jeannie . 18 September 2010 . Profile Article: Lisa Bufano . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20150607163155/http://jeannierebecca.com/features-and-profiles/profile-article-lisa-bufano/ . 7 June 2015 . 29 March 2015 . Writing Folio .
  18. Web site: 18 May 2012 . Trans-Q TV Explores Gender, Sexuality, and Ecstatic Acts of Being . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20160303233722/https://www.cmu.edu/art/news/2012/trans-q-tv-explores-gender-sexuality.html . 3 March 2016 . 29 March 2015 . School of Art . Carnegie Mellon University.
  19. Web site: March . Mary Corey . 25 October 2013 . The lllusion of 'when I have time' (in honor of Lisa Bufano) . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230406152704/https://marycoreymarch.wordpress.com/2013/10/25/the-lllusion-of-when-i-have-time-in-honor-of-lisa-bufano/ . 6 April 2023 . 12 November 2013 . From the Studio . WordPress.
  20. Web site: Bufano . Lisa . 2010 . Artist Residency, Boise Idaho . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20101101031748/http://www.lisabufano.com/lbufanonews/?p=59 . 1 November 2010 . Lisa Bufano.
  21. Web site: Goodwin . Joy . 15 January 2007 . A Dancer's Hard-Won Debut . limited . live . https://archive.today/20230409210304/https://www.nysun.com/article/arts-dancers-hard-won-debut . 9 April 2023 . 25 February 2021 . The New York Sun.
  22. Web site: Bufano . Lisa . 6 February 2012 . From Boise Back in the Bay – by former AXIS Company Member Lisa Bufano . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20131104224844/http://axisdance.org/2012/02/from-boise-back-in-the-bay-by-former-dancer-lisa-bufano/ . 4 November 2013 . 12 November 2013 . Axis Dance Company .
  23. Web site: 3 November 2014 . Four Choreographies: Lisa Bufano, Cara Levine, Shari Paladino, Sadie Wilcox . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20150510031055/http://art.berkeley.edu/events/event/four-choreographies/ . 10 May 2015 . 29 March 2015 . Art Practice . University of California - Berkeley.
  24. Web site: 29 September 2015 . David Bufano + Sonsheree Giles // Talk . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230406152701/https://www.storefrontlab.org/calendar/2015/9/29/david-bufano-sonsheree-giles-talk . 6 April 2023 . 9 April 2023 . Store Front Lab .

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