What are the stakes in saving the NEA, today? Departing from the recent legislative back-and-forth between President Donald Trump and Congress over the budgetary future of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), this performance analysis of the NEA’s 31 March 2017 meeting of the National Council on the Arts reveals the complex political posturing that undergirds federal support for the arts in US culture.

In Deaf West’s Broadway revival of Spring Awakening , embodied gestures expose and challenge representational and infrastructural norms that drive commercial musical theatre. The company’s blend of ASL and spoken text extends the overarching message about failed sociocultural ideals to the realm of deaf culture. Micro-practical actions and interactions function tacitly to denaturalize audio-centric standards that guide theatrical reception, internal cueing, and technical production.