This is the fourth and final installment of our Artability Artist Spotlight series, which highlights artists who are differently-abled, and runs throughout Alternate ROOTS’ Artability campaign. Artability provides scholarships for artists with disabilities to attend ROOTS Week. You can read the first three spotlights — featuring Camille Shafer, Samuel Valdez, and Nikki Brown — on the ROOTS blog. To learn more about, or donate to, the Artability campaign, visit our Indiegogo page.
Amanda Levesque is a theater artist based in Asheville, NC. Her interest in art began at a young age. “I feel like I have always been a performer,” she says, “I can remember acting and directing Cinderella with my family when I was three or four years old.” Throughout middle and high school she was active in theater — acting, directing, designing, and house managing. In 2008, she graduated with a BA in Theatre from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, with a focus on directing.
Following college, Amanda returned to Asheville, and within a year, was introduced to Polly Medlicott, one of the producers of A New Kind of Listening, a documentary about the mixed-abilities Community Inclusive Theater Group. In early 2010, Amanda helped Polly organize a screening of the film, followed by a workshop to discuss it. At that workshop, Interweave Asheville was born — a mixed abilities performance group of which Amanda is a part. Interweave has performed at Azule, the University of North Carolina Asheville, and several Asheville Fringe Festivals. This past Fringe, Interweave won the award for “Artists That Pushed the Boundaries Between Everyday Life and Art.” View Interweave Asheville’s 2012 Fringe Performance here: