Perspectives: The Conversation of Dance

If you meet me and ask what I do, I'll probably tell you that I am a dancer.

Depending on the context, I may say that I'm an artist, or a working artist. Given the askance looks that usually follow – how many professional dancers with obvious physical disabilities have you met? – I'll pull out one of Full Radius', my dance company, postcards and proffer it with a smile. The smile is because I know what comes next: the head tilts sideways, then the card is turned upside down. Yes, it's real. Yes, that's a dancer. In a wheelchair. Doing a handstand. Yes, that's hard to do.

It's far from a perfect answer. It's a compromise that delivers a bit of education and allows me to get on with my life without burning out on the constant explaining. It doesn't do service to the reality that dance, while requiring skill and dedication, doesn't actually require flashy physicality, but it's a start. Sometimes, it's a start that pulls someone in to experience a performance and become a participant in the conversation.

I grew up playing music, not dancing. Piano first, then other instruments. I stumbled into dance almost by happenstance, just after college, when I was on the fence about attending medical or graduate school. Somehow, I never left.

The performance of any art form requires work and mindful practice; learning music is how I discovered that hard work could be rewarding, and that creating something new was fun. Those skills transfer to pretty much anything you want to pursue, and are often used as justification for arts education. Those skills are important, but art needs no justification other than its existence.

Art is how we, as a society, have conversations about things that aren't easily expressed or heard in language. A work of art isn't some static thing that is archived and changeless; art is an ongoing discussion between the artist, the work and viewers of the work.

Access to view, engage with, and create art is a means of determining who is and isn't a part of that conversation. Art enables us to share visceral and emotional experiences and concepts in a way that slices through boundaries.
Particularly for people with disabilities, art is a means by which we can communicate across perceived barriers of language, thought process and embodiment. There are many ways to actively engage in art, in that ongoing conversation. You can participate by viewing or listening to art, by discussing it, by volunteering for arts organizations or helping to produce performing arts, by taking classes or learning an art, by creating or participating in public or private art projects.

Art, in creation and engagement, rewards diversity of viewpoints, inputs and experiences in a truly unique fashion.

by Laurel Lawson
Dancer, Full Radius

Tags: Making a Difference, Perspectives