Research
I am a theatre artist and scholar specializing in performance studies and feminist care theory. Most generally, my research investigates discourses of care at the sites of gender, communication, and performance. I ask: How do we make social change through communicative practice? And: Can these interventions be situated in practices of care? I contribute to interdisciplinary conversations and use methods such as practice research, interviewing, focus groups, dramatic criticism, and archiving.
Publications
Risk, Orion. “Weaving (Trans) Time in Mexican Cabaret's La Prietty Guoman.” Latin American Theatre Review (forthcoming in Spring 2024 edition).
Risk, Orion, and Christine Garlough. “Complicating Care: Vulnerability Re-Imagined through Performance.” Performance Research 27, no. 6–7 (October 3, 2022): 145–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2022.2198314.
Conference Presentations
Risk, Orion. “Conversation Performance: Assemble with Care,” Performance Studies International, Virtual Presentation, June 20-23, 2024. Online.
Risk, Orion. “Widening the Aperture: Trans Care in the WTF,” Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium, Universities of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, April 11-13, 2024.
Garlough, Christine, Orion Risk, Amber Palson, Beatriz Botero, Haritha Bhairahabhatla, Hannah Kennedy, and Carrie Danielson. “Activism and Aging: It’s All the Rage,” Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium, Universities of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, April 11-13, 2024.
Risk, Orion. “The Protest Paradigm in Media Framing of Expressive Art: Black Lives Matter Protest Art Coverage in Three Cities, Summer 2020,” paper delivered to the Mass Communication Division of the National Communication Association, National Harbor, Maryland, Nov. 16-20, 2023.
Risk, Orion. “Theatre as Discursive Tool of Imperialism: A “Publick Theatre” in Jamaica, 1683,” paper delivered to the Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division of the National Communication Association, National Harbor, Maryland, Nov. 16-20, 2023.
Risk, Orion. “Performing Utopia: Transgender Time in La Prietty Guoman,” paper delivered to Performance Studies International, Virtual Presentation, Aug 2-5, 2023.
Risk, Orion. “Trans Vulnerability, Performance, and Acknowledgement,” paper delivered to the Performance Studies Division of the National Communication Association, New Orleans, Louisiana, Nov 17-20, 2022.
Risk, Orion. “Transmasculine Fat on Stage: Constructions of Bodily Meaning,” paper delivered to the Mid-America Theatre Conference, Cleveland, Ohio, March 3-6, 2022.
Risk, Orion. “Performing Trans Care on Zoom Theatre,” paper delivered at Relations of Care Across and After Worlds, sponsored by the UW–Madison Ethics of Care Initiative, Virtual Conference, May 13-14, 2021.
