Fair Mobility

Organizations such as Axis Dance Company and Full Radius Dance are helping to bring together the dance community and the disabled community by promoting change in how people engage and view the performing arts community.

Also known as integrated dance, wheelchair dance has been in existence for over two decades. Integrated dance companies have been forming around the world since about 1980, and the first international dance competition took place in Sweden in 1977.

Full Radius Dance, a company located in Atlanta, has a program called Positive Motion, which caters to adults and children with disabilities and focuses on the creative and artistic qualities of dance. Founded in 1990 by Douglas Scott, a former modern performer, the company performs regularly throughout Georgia.

After several regional and international competitions, the first World Championships were organized in Japan in 1998. The same year, Wheelchair Dance Sport became an IPC Championship Sport, but is not part of the “Paralympic programme today.

Charlene Curtiss is a widely recognized wheelchair dancer who has performed and produced movement workshops and residencies for students both nationally and internationally for more than 10 years. She currently works with the Washington State Arts Commission under the Artists in Residence Program. Her original dance techniques in “front-end chair control” have redefined dance parameters and choreographic terminology of wheelchair movement work.

Companies such as Positive Motion approach dance in an artistic way, allowing the resulting movement to be natural and creative; coming from inside of the dancer. Rather than a therapeutic approach to movement, integrated dance companies explore similar avenues of mobility with the same prinicples behind it as physical therapy.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 22nd, 2005 at 10:55 am and is filed under Mobility Advocates, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.