Lisa Bufano

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Lisa Bufano (born 1972) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work incorporates elements of doll-making, animation, and dance. Bufano is a graduate of both Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA). Though she is based in Boston, Massachusetts, Bufano was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. After surviving a staphylococcus bacterial infection at the age of 21 her fingers and lower legs were amputated.

Her dance work typically incorporates a variety of prosthetics and props, but she also includes segments where her unadorned body is the focus of the performance. According to Bufano she manipulates her body as a way to explore alternative locomotion, corporeal difference, and animation/manipulation. She explained her aesthetic and political goals when she claimed that: "Despite my own terror and discomfort in being watched (or, maybe, because of it), I am finding that being in front of viewers as a performer with deformity can produce a magnetic tension that could be developed into strength. I attempt to channel this tension by exaggerating the mode of physical difference (for example, presenting myself on stilts)."^[1]