antiquity
01-27-2003, 05:13 PM
U.S. disabled dancers create new world of movement
By Leslie Adler
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Kitty Lunn began studying ballet at age 8 and more than 40 years later she has yet to hang up her dance shoes -- at least figuratively.
Lunn was paralyzed from the hips down in 1987 when she slipped on the ice and fell down a flight of stairs, but like other disabled dancers across the United States, she has found a way to dance that transcends the ability to walk.
Lunn, who founded New York-based Infinity Dance Theater in 1994, notes that some people swear she's not paralyzed after seeing her perform. In the dance "Neruda," she moves from her wheelchair to the floor, fluidly moving and twisting, kneeling, bending from the waist and turning as she dances with two other women.
"I use the word 'transpose,"' Lunn said in an interview as she described how she translates dance -- an art almost invariably linked with images of jumps and kicks -- into a form that incorporates disabled dancers.
Others call their art "integrated dance," noting that their dance companies -- like Infinity -- blend able-bodied and disabled dances.
"We don't consider what we do to be disabled dance," said Judith Smith, artistic director of Axis Dance, based in Oakland, California.
Smith, who suffered a spinal cord injury at age 17 in a car accident, is one of six disabled and four able-bodied dancers in Axis.
A NEW VOCABULARY OF DANCE
Choreography for disabled dancers does require rethinking the elements of dance and devising ways to integrate the movement of disabled dancers, some of whom may use wheelchairs, with the able-bodied. But both disabled and able-bodied dancers said those challenges open the door to new artistic expression.
Sabatino Verlezza said that after becoming the artistic director of Cleveland-based Dancing Wheels in 1994 he had to develop a new language of dance.
"It was like a haiku. Someone said you can only use seven words," Verlezza said.
Douglas Scott, the artistic director of Full Radius Dance in Atlanta, said he watches his dancers closely to understand their range of movement and even does much of his choreography and teaching while seated. But he also is not afraid to emphasize the differences between dancers, including a recent piece that put some dancers on stilts to exaggerate the height difference between them and those in wheelchairs.
Smith also said that movement provides the starting point for creating pieces for Axis, but noted that ultimately choreographing for an integrated dance company involves the same process as for any other dance company.
"Whenever a choreographer goes into a company, they're working with a set of bodies," Smith said. "The frustration is no greater," she added.
'CHALLENGING THIS PARADIGM OF DISABILITY'
Dancing Wheels, which was founded 22 years ago by Mary Verdi-Fletcher, who has spina bifida, is regarded as the oldest professional disabled dance company. There are now well over a dozen such dance companies in the United States, as well as companies in Europe and New Zealand.
There is no great mushrooming of disabled dance companies, but participants say there is slow growth in the field as the vocabulary of dance and the understanding of what disability is expands.
"There are pockets of this all over the world," said Scott of Full Radius Dance, noting that the American Disabilities Act and the civil rights movement both helped pave the way for disabled dance companies in the United States.
Some dancers like Lunn and Homer Avila, a New York-based dancer who had his right leg and hip amputated in April 2001 due to a rare form of cancer, have worked to reinvent their dance careers after becoming disabled. Others discovered dance only after becoming disabled.
"I'm basically challenging this paradigm of disability," said Avila. "Going through my surgery, I never questioned that I would return to dance."
Avila, a muscular, athletic dancer who executes one-legged jumps, calls his latest dance "(Body of) Works in Progress." "My idea here is that my body is in redevelopment," he said.
Lunn, on the other hand, said that after becoming paralyzed, "I tried very hard to stop dancing." Finding that impossible, she set about to find a new way to dance.
Smith of Axis Dance who had competed on the show-jumping circuit before becoming paralyzed, discovered dance after getting involved with martial arts. "I was interested in moving," she said.
But even as the dancers found personal success, they have found that developing audiences for their companies is hard work as they to fight to be recognized as dancers.
"There are still people in the mainstream dance world who still see what I do not as dancing," said Lunn.
Scott of Full Radius Dance cited a misperception brought up repeatedly by disabled dance companies: "Some people think we're doing dance therapy, and we're not," he said.
For Axis, whose inventive work includes aerial pieces using ropes and ladders, one way it worked to combat those prejudices was to commission dances by well known choreographers such as Bill T. Jones and Stephen Petronio to help raise its profile in the dance world.
"Until we got people to see that this is dance, we weren't going to get the recognition we deserve," said Smith.
Reuters/Variety
01/27/03 14:32 ET
By Leslie Adler
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Kitty Lunn began studying ballet at age 8 and more than 40 years later she has yet to hang up her dance shoes -- at least figuratively.
Lunn was paralyzed from the hips down in 1987 when she slipped on the ice and fell down a flight of stairs, but like other disabled dancers across the United States, she has found a way to dance that transcends the ability to walk.
Lunn, who founded New York-based Infinity Dance Theater in 1994, notes that some people swear she's not paralyzed after seeing her perform. In the dance "Neruda," she moves from her wheelchair to the floor, fluidly moving and twisting, kneeling, bending from the waist and turning as she dances with two other women.
"I use the word 'transpose,"' Lunn said in an interview as she described how she translates dance -- an art almost invariably linked with images of jumps and kicks -- into a form that incorporates disabled dancers.
Others call their art "integrated dance," noting that their dance companies -- like Infinity -- blend able-bodied and disabled dances.
"We don't consider what we do to be disabled dance," said Judith Smith, artistic director of Axis Dance, based in Oakland, California.
Smith, who suffered a spinal cord injury at age 17 in a car accident, is one of six disabled and four able-bodied dancers in Axis.
A NEW VOCABULARY OF DANCE
Choreography for disabled dancers does require rethinking the elements of dance and devising ways to integrate the movement of disabled dancers, some of whom may use wheelchairs, with the able-bodied. But both disabled and able-bodied dancers said those challenges open the door to new artistic expression.
Sabatino Verlezza said that after becoming the artistic director of Cleveland-based Dancing Wheels in 1994 he had to develop a new language of dance.
"It was like a haiku. Someone said you can only use seven words," Verlezza said.
Douglas Scott, the artistic director of Full Radius Dance in Atlanta, said he watches his dancers closely to understand their range of movement and even does much of his choreography and teaching while seated. But he also is not afraid to emphasize the differences between dancers, including a recent piece that put some dancers on stilts to exaggerate the height difference between them and those in wheelchairs.
Smith also said that movement provides the starting point for creating pieces for Axis, but noted that ultimately choreographing for an integrated dance company involves the same process as for any other dance company.
"Whenever a choreographer goes into a company, they're working with a set of bodies," Smith said. "The frustration is no greater," she added.
'CHALLENGING THIS PARADIGM OF DISABILITY'
Dancing Wheels, which was founded 22 years ago by Mary Verdi-Fletcher, who has spina bifida, is regarded as the oldest professional disabled dance company. There are now well over a dozen such dance companies in the United States, as well as companies in Europe and New Zealand.
There is no great mushrooming of disabled dance companies, but participants say there is slow growth in the field as the vocabulary of dance and the understanding of what disability is expands.
"There are pockets of this all over the world," said Scott of Full Radius Dance, noting that the American Disabilities Act and the civil rights movement both helped pave the way for disabled dance companies in the United States.
Some dancers like Lunn and Homer Avila, a New York-based dancer who had his right leg and hip amputated in April 2001 due to a rare form of cancer, have worked to reinvent their dance careers after becoming disabled. Others discovered dance only after becoming disabled.
"I'm basically challenging this paradigm of disability," said Avila. "Going through my surgery, I never questioned that I would return to dance."
Avila, a muscular, athletic dancer who executes one-legged jumps, calls his latest dance "(Body of) Works in Progress." "My idea here is that my body is in redevelopment," he said.
Lunn, on the other hand, said that after becoming paralyzed, "I tried very hard to stop dancing." Finding that impossible, she set about to find a new way to dance.
Smith of Axis Dance who had competed on the show-jumping circuit before becoming paralyzed, discovered dance after getting involved with martial arts. "I was interested in moving," she said.
But even as the dancers found personal success, they have found that developing audiences for their companies is hard work as they to fight to be recognized as dancers.
"There are still people in the mainstream dance world who still see what I do not as dancing," said Lunn.
Scott of Full Radius Dance cited a misperception brought up repeatedly by disabled dance companies: "Some people think we're doing dance therapy, and we're not," he said.
For Axis, whose inventive work includes aerial pieces using ropes and ladders, one way it worked to combat those prejudices was to commission dances by well known choreographers such as Bill T. Jones and Stephen Petronio to help raise its profile in the dance world.
"Until we got people to see that this is dance, we weren't going to get the recognition we deserve," said Smith.
Reuters/Variety
01/27/03 14:32 ET