Laura Flanders interviews two performance artists whose work illustrates how difference and neurodiversity make art and society richer and much more interesting. Alice Sheppard is a wheelchair dancer and esteemed choreographer, the artistic director of the company Kinetic Light. Jess Thom is a performer and comedian with Tourettes Syndrome, the founder of the project TourettesHero. In their conversations with Laura, they question the role of art in society as well as our attitudes towards disability and what is typically considered normal.
The Laura Flanders Show explores actionable models for creating a better world by reporting on the people and movements driving systemic change. We spotlight the solutions of tomorrow, today. The 28minute radio program (released 5pm Wednesdays) also airs as a TV Show on PBS stations reaching 80% of U.S. households. Laura Flanders is an Izzy-Award winning independent journalist, a New York Times bestselling author and the recipient of the Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Media Center. Says Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of the Nation, who has known her for 25 years, “Flanders’ fearless and humane journalism never fails to challenge our downsized politics of excluded alternatives. But it does more — Flanders wants her reporting to shift power, seed bold ideas and offer people a way forward that is about transformative not transactional change”.