Maggie Bridger is a sick and disabled dance artist, fiber artist, organizer, and scholar interested in reimagining pain through the creative process. Maggie is a 2022 City of Chicago Individual Artist Program grantee and has held artist residencies through High Concept Labs, the Chicago Cultural Center's Learning Lab, Synapse Arts, and Chicago Dancemakers Forum. Her work has been shown at Elevate Chicago Dance 2022, The Art Institute of Chicago, Cottey College, CounterBalance, and The Plant, among others. Most recently, she premiered a new version of her ongoing work, Radiate, as part of The Steppenwolf’s LookOut series. She is a co-founder, along with collaborator Sydney Erlikh, of the community-run Inclusive Dance Workshop Series and a founding member of Unfolding Disability Futures, a local collective of disabled performing artists. She has worked with organizations such as Synapse Arts, 3Arts, and High Concept Labs in various capacities as an access worker and consultant.

Alongside her collaborator, Alison Kopit, Maggie is working to define and develop the practice of Access Dramaturgy. Learn more about Access Dramaturgy in Maggie and Alison’s 2025 essay written with Anne Marie Dorr, “Introducing Access Dramaturgy.”

Maggie is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois, Chicago where she is conducting archival and ethnographic research in service of her dissertation project, Dancing With/in Pain. Her writing has been published in the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, Le Sociographe, The HowlRound and the Journal of Cultural and Literary Disability Studies. After serving as an administrative fellow with the Dance Studies Association for two years, she transitioned to the role of Membership Manager in 2024 and will move into the new role of Membership and Conference Manager in 2025. Maggie serves as a member of Synapse Arts' Programming Committee and on the organizing committee for the Chicago Dance Studies Working Group.