Raising the Bar in Disability Arts

This article discusses my pedagogical approach towards teaching dance, movement, and theatre to artists with cognitive disabilities. I have developed a training method for artists participating in my classes and productions that invites individual creative exploration and professional rigour. My inclusive dance-theatre company, Les Productions des pieds des mains, creates productions that are presented on professional artistic platforms and not limited to the context of disabled art presentations. Our productions are regularly subject to the same selection criteria as would be a non-inclusive company. With this in mind, I aim for excellence. I work towards creating high quality shows while helping artists with a disability push past their perceived limits and surpass themselves. In this article I will share my findings and strategies, perfected throughout my many years of experimentation, explaining how to reach a high-level of quality in inclusive productions, as well as how I help artists with a disability reach a level of quality in their performances which allows them to find gainful employment within the artistic domain.

Dancing with Diversity: Performing Possibilities, Transforming Disabilities

This paper enquires into the significance and potential of inclusive dance through the working process of a dance piece developed by a mixed team of professional dancers and dancers with disabilities. It is a self-reflective piece on what it means to live with a disability. The interplays between the artistic work and reality that emerged during rehearsals disrupted categories such as reality and fiction, process and performance, difference and normality. It analyses the mechanisms of reality that are put to work, and the aesthetic strategies that are used on the basis of examples from practice.