Performing arts companies have approached the integration of differently-abled dancers in a range of ways. It is increasingly clear, as Theodore Bale wrote in Dance Magazine (2009), that the term "disabled dancer is an oxymoron."
Wheelchair Dance Competitions
As in wheelchair sports, competitive dance events have rules and skill sets similar to those in other athletic competitions. Wheelchair dancing is a global sport with national and international leagues. Styles range from the waltz to hip-hop and creative fusions. Single dancers perform in certain events, and couples or performance teams may also integrate able dancers in what is termed a "combi-dance."
These performances reveal a great deal about the human body in dance mode. Spectators may, in fact, connect more viscerally with integrated dance performances. Among a dancer's greatest fears is the possibility of not making a movement. That risk is non-discriminatory, affecting all dancers of all abilities--an equal opportunity challenge.
How Choreographers Integrate Their Dance Ensembles
Whereas sports competitors depend on rules, artists are more likely to bend and break them for the sake of self-expression. It might seem intuitive to think of dancers as people who control their bodies very well, but the word "control" acquires intense nuance when applied to performers living with crippling ailments or losses of limbs or muscle tone, for whom any motion might be a painful struggle. During the last few decades, these physical challenges have paradoxically created new opportunities for dancers of differing abilities. Throughout the United States, numerous contemporary dance companies have "just said 'no' " to the "dis" in "disability."
From the recreational dancer to the high-end choreographer, dancers are repositioning our understanding of both capability and art. In 1990, Mary Verd-Fletcher, a wheelchair dancer, founded the Dancing Wheels School in Cleveland. This school is a center for integrated dance, and its paid performers tour internationally. The right to participate is fundamental to Verd-Fletcher, who describes the wheelchair as a second partner, presenting additional dance challenges.
At least one wheelchair dancer, Rodney Bell of Axis Dance, has made the transition from basketball to the arts. According to Bruce Weber (2009), the company includes four wheelchair and three non-disabled dancers. They collaborate with notable choreographers, including David Dorfman, with whom they developed "Light Shelter."
Healing Through Movement
Significant collaborations between integrated dancers and choreographers have produced encouraging collateral results in the evolving skills of the performers. To take one example, the dancer Greg Mozgala, who has cerebral palsy, partnered with choreographer Tamar Rogoff on the piece Diagnosis of a Faun.
Their work together improved his range of motion by working on a literary dance about the mythology of the faun. While many traditionalists view learning a dance as primarily a visual, imitative process, Rogoff, explains Claire Sibley (2010), prefers to work on what she calls " Body Scripting," involving the "directed articulation of a body part through space." Rogoff focuses her dances on what they are feeling as opposed to what they are seeing.
Confronting the Stereotypes
One common theme that emerges in athletes' and dancers' feelings about their performance is that they do not want to be noticed or rewarded for being different but rather for their skilled accomplishments. Viewing their performances is bound to be inspiring, but that's the rub, so to speak. The weight of inspiring unchallenged people is an additional burden alongside the challenges of fighting discrimination and blocked access.
Exploring The Gimp
The Gimp Project, choreographed by Heidi Latsky, a member of The Estate Project, opens with a feisty spoken throw-down delivered by dancer Lawrence Carter-Long, whom Lisa White (2009) describes as a "former cerebral palsy poster child." This opening is an ironic summary of "normal" spectator responses to differently abled dancers: "I thought you were going to be strange. I thought it was going to be weird....to look at you. To really see you." In his interview with White, Carter-Long expresses the opinion to Corey Kilgannon (2009) that there is no easy marriage of dance and disability; in his words, the relationship is a " collision."
Produced by Jeremy Alliger, who also produced a Wheelchair Dance Festival, this edgy, confrontational piece also features Latsky, herself (2009), who has explained that her choreography intends to "honor each person's really specific way of moving."
The movements of this piece revolve around extreme physicality to the point of battering limbs and intense extensions and shocks in addition to compelling aerial work. This work is accomplished through a collaboration of four trained dancers and four physically disabled performers. The word "gimp" has many meanings, including the seemingly contradicting possibilities of lameness and vigor, which Heidi Latsky Dance explores with passion and fearlessness.
Look Again
Turning the well-intentioned "Don't look!" sentiment of guilty, abled people to the "In your face!" attitude of a highly assertive person by controlling the motivations of the perceiver, integrated dance companies engage an audience by means of both art and skill. Never was it more important to exist in the moment.
