You might often feel like you’re wrestling with your body during dance class. You want to push yourself into a perfect turnout. You discipline your muscles to perform flawless pirouettes.

But in rehearsals at AXIS Dance Company, Inflight Dance Company, Keshet Dance Company, or Propeller Dance, dance isn’t about forcing your body to obey technique. It’s all about embracing your body’s ability for creative movement. And for the dancers in these companies, passion overcomes any physical limitations.

These dancers have a special knowledge of movement. That’s because they practice as dancers with disabilities.

“The Dancer Inside”

Kitty Lunn, Artistic Director of Infinity Dance Theater was preparing for her first Broadway role in 1987 when

she slipped on a patch of ice.

The fall broke her back. Lunn would have to live as a paraplegic, unable to use her legs.

“After my accident I was sure that my dancing days were over,” Lunn wrote on the Infinity Dance Theater website. “How could I dance when I couldn’t walk?”

But Lunn didn’t let a wheelchair stop her from dancing.

“What I learned was that the dancer inside me didn’t know or care that I was using a wheelchair, she just wanted to keep dancing.”

Lunn began re-planning her dance career from within a wheelchair. And in 1995, she opened Infinity Dance Theater, a non-traditional dance company featuring dancers with and without disabilities.

Dancing with Physical Disabilities

Physical disabilities are often the focus of companies that work for dancers with disabilities. The dancers can perform in wheelchairs, and they generally work alongside dancers without physical disabilities.

Wheelchair Dancesport Australia, which is a not-for-profit organization that promotes social and competitive “wheelchair dancing,” names several methods for choreographing pieces for dancers with disabilities.

A “Combi-Dance,” according to the organization, calls for one wheelchair user and one standing partner. A “Duo-Dance” requires two wheelchair users dancing together, in which one or both dancers may use electric wheelchairs. And, an “Assisted” dance is when two wheelchair users dance together, and one or both can have a pusher.

Although this is a simplified view, companies that recruit dancers with physical disabilities can choreograph dances using one, or more, of the three approaches above. Dancing Wheels Company of Cleveland, Ohio names itself as the first modern dance company “to integrate professional stand-up and sit-down (wheelchair) dancers.”

Dancing with Learning Disabilities, Hearing Impairments, or Visual Impairments

Although many dancers with disabilities are in wheelchairs, organizations throughout the world provide opportunities for dancers with learning disabilities, hearing impairments, and blindness.

The Gallaudet Dance Company of Gallaudet University in Washington D.C. offers resources to dancers who are deaf and hard-of-hearing. Through the use of high-quality sound systems, visual counting, and signs, these dancers develop a keen sense of internal rhythm.

Touchdown Dance in Manchester, England, UK works to train dancers who are visually impaired. Touchdown

Dance uses a method called “Contact Improvisation,” (CI) which creates a “fluid close contact duet with a more sensory feel.” CI requires a high level of trust between partners, who must understand one another’s abilities and intentions through touch.

Anjali Dance Company in Banbury, Oxfordshire, England, presents the work of contemporary dancers with learning disabilities. In 2000, Anjali was commissioned by the Royal Festival Hall to create a new work for the Blazing Dance Festival 2000. And afterward, Anjali was invited to perform at the Royal Opera House with dancers from the Royal Ballet.

Companies such as StopGAP Dance Company, MoMo Dance Theatre, and Spitzer Dance Company name themselves as “mixed ability” organizations. Dancers with all abilities and talents work together in these companies, creating work that is informed by a wide range of experiences and senses.

Resources for Dancers

The companies listed in this post are just a few of the organizations that work for dancers with disabilities.

Whether you’re looking for information on funding or for the chance to connect with a company, you can start your research with the following resources:

• Arts Empowerment Resources
• Resources for Adaptive & Wheelchair Dance
• National Arts Disability Center Resources
• VSA Arts
• Disability, Dance, Movement & the Arts

Get Involved

Many of the dance companies that work for people with disabilities accept volunteers to fill various positions. Visit some of the sites within this post to find out how you can work in one of these companies. You’ll learn to appreciate dance through the perspective of dancers who use skills and senses that most people don’t get to develop.

Visit the following links to access more resources for dancers with disabilities around the world.

• DanceAbility International (Eugene, Oregon, US): mixed-abilities dance.
• Wheelchair Dancesport USA (Irvington, New York, US)
• Full Radius Dance (Atlanta, Georgia, US): a physically-integrated modern dance company.
• REVolutions Dance (Florida, US): professional dance company of artists both with and without disabilities.
• Infinite Dreams (California, US): a dance and drama outreach program of Bethune Theatredanse, providing theater and dance opportunities to disabled and at-risk children
• Magpie Dance (Bromley, London, UK): inclusive company for people with and without learning disabilities.
• FRONTLINEdance (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England): performance, education and outreach work for people of all abilities and ages.
• Amici Dance Theatre (London, England, UK): integrates “able-bodied and disabled artists and performers.”
• CandoCo Dance Company (London): “the contemporary dance company of disabled and non-disabled dancers.”
• Remix Dance Project (Rondebosch, Cape Town, South Africa): contemporary dance initiative that unites performers with physical disabilities and performers without.
• Touch Compass Dance Trust (Auckland, New Zealand): A charitable dance organization producing performances and providing training for those of mixed abilities.
• Restless Dance Company (Adelaide, South Australia): creating “new dance theatre that is informed by cultures of disability.”

Photo Sources:

• Infinity Dance Theater
• Dancing Wheels Company
• REVolutions Dance
• Propeller Dance