Ms. Lisa Bufano

Lisa “Louise” Bufano, 40, of San Francisco, California and Boston, Massachusetts, passed away unexpectedly in her home on October 3. A memorial service was held in San Francisco on Saturday, October 12th. A memorial service will also be held on Saturday Oct. 26th at 10:30AM at St. Robert Bellarmine parish, 198 Haggetts Pond Rd., Andover, MA 01810. Lisa is survived by her parents, Louis A. Bufano, Jr. and Elizabeth “Betty” Bufano, brothers Andrew Bufano, his wife Lisa Sciacca Bufano and their two children, of Newton, New Hampshire, Peter Bufano and his girlfriend Camilla Finlay, of Allston, Massachusetts, and David Bufano and his wife Tamara Palaganas, of Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts. Also mourning her loss is her long-time dance partner, Sonsheree Giles of the AXIS Dance Company, hundreds of friends across the globe, and her ever-faithful companion and service dog, Bear. Lisa was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut on October 20, 1972. She graduated from Tewksbury Memorial High School and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2003. Following graduation from SMFA, Boston, Lisa worked as a web developer at the Museum of Science in Boston until she left that post in 2005 to pursue her interests in sculpture, stop-motion animation and other forms of the visual arts through The Contemporary Artists Center Residency in North Adams, Massachusetts. In 1994 at the age of 21, Lisa suffered a life-threatening bacterial infection that led to the amputation of her fingers and both legs below the knee. In 2006, a professor at the University of Linz who was studying amputees invited Lisa to become what she would later come to call a “shape-shifter.” Uniting her athletic and artistic gifts to create meaningful performance art, Lisa performed her first major work, “Five Open Mouths,” in 2006, in which Lisa portrayed the experience of unwrapping the bandages covering her hands after her fingers had been amputated. Afterward, she created “Four Legs Good”, her first piece using four table legs. In the years that followed, Lisa moved audiences across the world with her authentic and sometimes raw form of modern dance, including a performance at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in 2007. She toured with the AXIS Dance Company from 2006 through 2010, performing such works as “The Beauty That Was Mine Through The Middle Without Stopping”, “Dancing To Music”, and “Foregone”. “One Breath is an Ocean for a Wooden Heart” was both choreographed & performed with Sonsheree Giles. Videos of these and other works can be found at LisaBufano.com and on YouTube. During a break from touring in 2009 to address health concerns, Lisa also pursued visual work in dance, painting and softsculpture as a resident artist in Boise, Idaho’s 8th St. AIR Program. In every medium of her artistry, Lisa explored themes of “the visceral experience of alienation, embodied by creatures, real and imagined.” In a video profile created by Caite Davis in 2012, Lisa reflected on her experience of having “different bodies” depending on what types of prosthetics or props she might or might not be wearing and how it gave her an opportunity to explore the different shapes for purposes of her performances (http://www.caitdavis.com/media.htm). As she commented in an article for SMFA’s school magazine, "I'm not an astounding dancer, but being a performer with a deformity, I find that there's a gut response in audiences, an attraction/repulsion aspect to it that can be compelling. I just hope that there's a balance between that gut response and the substance of a performance." (http://www.smfa.edu/lisa-bufano). Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Bufano. Thousands of friends and fans across the world will miss Lisa’s graceful artistry and insightful creativity. Those who knew Lisa best will sorely miss her good nature, sharp wit and easy laugh. She never wanted her story to focus on overcoming adversity (she chafed at the thought of being an Oprah Winfrey human interest story), lest that cloud the message of her art. Yet, she was a sister, mentor and companion on the journey to so many, that she could not avoid inspiring others to be their better selves.

Ms. Lisa Bufano

October 20, 1972 - October 3, 2013