Breadth of Bodies: Discussing Disability in Dance seeks to investigate stereotypes often used to describe professional dancers with disabilities. Spearheaded by Emmaly Wiederholt and Silva Laukkanen with illustrations by visual artist Liz Brent-Maldonado, the team interviewed 35 professional dance artists with disabilities around the country and world, asking about training, access, and press, as well as looking at the state of the field.Purchase your print copy of Breadth of Bodies: Discussing Disability in Dance on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Herringbone Books, Green Apple Books, Walmart, and other online retailers.Purchase your ebook copy on Kindle, Kobo, Scribd, and other platforms.Purchase your audiobook copy on Audible.Details: Authored by Emmaly Wiederholt and Silva Laukkanen, illustrations by Liz Brent-Maldonado, design by Christelle Dreyer, edited by Donne Lewis and April Adams, audiobook narrated by Sami Kekäläinen.

Breadth of Bodies; Mary Verdi-Fletcher

Breadth of Bodies; Discussing Disability in Dance. Jung Sun Krops Lee

Breadth of Bodies:Discussing Disability in dance. Hai Cohen

Breadth of Bodies: Discussing Disability in Dance seeks to investigate stereotypes often used to describe professional dancers with disabilities. Spearheaded by Emmaly Wiederholt and Silva Laukkanen with illustrations by visual artist Liz Brent-Maldonado, the team interviewed 35 professional dance artists with disabilities around the country and world, asking about training, access, and press, as well as looking at the state of the field.Purchase your print copy of Breadth of Bodies: Discussing Disability in Dance on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Herringbone Books, Green Apple Books, Walmart, and other online retailers.Purchase your ebook copy on Kindle, Kobo, Scribd, and other platforms.Purchase your audiobook copy on Audible.Details: Authored by Emmaly Wiederholt and Silva Laukkanen, illustrations by Liz Brent-Maldonado, design by Christelle Dreyer, edited by Donne Lewis and April Adams, audiobook narrated by Sami Kekäläinen.  

Breadth of Bodies:Discussing Disability in Dance. Isabel Cristina Jimenez

Breadth of Bodies: Discussing Disability in Dance. Nastija Fijolic

Breadth of Bodies: Discussing Disability in Dance. Lusi Insiati

Breadth of Bodies: Discussing Disability in Dance, Hanna Cormick

Breadth of Bodies: Discussing Disability in Dance, Hannah Sampson

Breadth of Bodies: Discussing Disability in Dance, Kazuyo Morita

Breadth of Bodies: Discussing Disability in Dance, Redo Aitt Chitt

“I Have Terrible Anxiety but I Love Being Onstage” In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews her intern Emily Heath, a dance student at Bennington College. As a young person, Emily reflects on the economic uncertainty of pursuing dance and their desire to learn more entrepreneurial and marketable skills in addition to somatic-based curriculum. Emily reflects on their ongoing experience of anxiety, and how they now feel supported in dance environments but acknowledge that getting a diagnosis and treatment can be a privilege. Their future goals feel tempered by the pandemic, but they describe their interest in exploring digital spaces and developing a movement vocabulary to process emotion. Finally, Emily expresses how showing up with anxiety in dance spaces is an ongoing negotiation.Text by Emmaly WiederholtEmily Heath is a dancer and student at Bennington College. They have studied many different styles for more than 10 years. The work they are doing now is centered around understanding their internal landscape and how dance can become a tool to heal. They are curious about how to make dance accessible to those who may not feel welcome in the dance community for various reasons. They believe that every person and experience has something to teach them and they are excited to learn those things. Check out my collaborator Stance on Dance  which is a 501c3 dance journalism nonprofit that educates the dance community and wider audiences about dance from the perspective of underrepresented voices and access points. To see more about what I do, check out bodyshift.org.Emily Heath's video project about anxiety "Whirlpooling Thoughts" is coming soon. 

I "I Have Terrible Anxiety but I Love Being Onstage" / Emily Heath

Exploring How Performance is ExperiencedIn this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Jess Curtis, an award-winning choreographer, performer, and scholar based in San Francisco and Berlin. Jess reflects on his entrance to dance through skiing and how he was immediately hooked to being onstage. He shares how his career took a turn when he accepted a job in an interdisciplinary nouveau cirque company in France, and how he later established himself in Berlin while still running his company Jess Curtis/Gravity in the Bay Area. A pivotal working relationship with Scottish disability dance artist Claire Cunningham turned Jess’ focus toward integrating access accommodations like sign language interpretation or audio descriptions into performance. This work also informed his PhD, which looked at phenomenologies of perception and how vision is over-utilized in performance.Text by Emmaly Wiederholt Jess Curtis is committed to an art-making practice informed by experimentation, innovation, critical discourse, and social relevance at the intersections of fine art and popular culture. He has created and performed multidisciplinary dance performance throughout the US and Europe with seminal group Contraband, the radical performance collective CORE and the experimental French circus company Cahin-Caha, Cirque Batard. From 1991 to 1998, he co-directed the ground-breaking San Francisco performance venue 848 Community Space with Keith Hennessy and Michael Whitson. In 2000, Jess founded his own trans-continental performance company, Jess Curtis/Gravity, based in Berlin and San Francisco. In 2011 he was presented the prestigious Alpert Award in the Arts for choreography and the Homer Avila Award for innovation in physically diverse performance. Jess is active as a writer, advocate, and community organizer in the fields of contemporary dance and performance, and teaches dance, contact improvisation and interdisciplinary performance for individuals of all abilities throughout the US and Europe. He has been a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of the Arts in Berlin. He holds an MFA in Choreography and a PhD in Performance Studies from the University of California at Davis.To learn more, visit www.jesscurtisgravity.org.Check out my collaborator Stance on Dance  which is a 501c3 dance journalism nonprofit that educates the dance community and wider audiences about dance from the perspective of underrepresented voices and access points. To see more about what I do, check out bodyshift.org.

Exploring How Performance is Experience / Jess Curtis

How Dance is Taught / Daniel Levi-Sanchez. In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews the dance educator Daniel Levi-Sanchez. Daniel reflects on his formative years teaching himself street forms as well as eventually receiving more traditional training from the Inner-City Ensemble Theatre and Dance Co., from Juilliard, and from Twyla Tharp herself. Daniel advocates for a teaching style that empowers students instead of isolates them. He muses on how a ballet or jazz class will lose a lot of students if the class is presented in the public schools, or how students who go to a studio often end up dropping out after high school or college. In 2019, Daniel was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and acquired a disability. After successfully completing a dance challenge from an old colleague, Daniel began to revisit dance with a focus on dance teachers with disabilities.Text by Emmaly WiederholtDaniel Levi-Sanchez, from Paterson, New Jersey, received his formal dance training from the Inner-City Ensemble Theatre and Dance Co. and the Juilliard School of Dance. He performed with Twyla Tharp Dance, American Ballet Theatre, and ODC/San Francisco and is a dance educator with a master’s degree in Education from Rutgers University. Daniel has taught ballet and modern dance at Rutgers University, Raritan Valley Community College, and for three years at PS 191, The Paul Robeson School in Crown Heights Brooklyn. In 2019, Daniel was diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis, a neuromuscular disorder brought on by an autoimmune response resulting in permanent disability. Today, Daniel is focusing on his health first, as well as finding ways of remaining involved in the dance community through advocacy for teachers with disabilities, advice for dancers and teachers, writing and testing the limits of what he can and cannot do in the hope of someday being able to teach again. Daniel currently resides in Kingston, Rhode Island.This episode was published in collaboration with Stance on Dance.And more about Silva does at Art Spark Texas check out the dance programs website, bodyshift.org 

How Dance is Taught / Daniel Levi-Sanchez

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Tebandeke Joseph, an African contemporary dance artist based in Uganda. He shares how athletics led him to contemporary dance, and how he sees dance as an engine for change. Tebandeke aims to change the community perspective on disability through street performances and through the schools. He dreams of eventually opening an accessible dance center with an adjoining library about dance and sports so people with disabilities can have more support and exposure. Tebandeke describes how the village mindset in his country believes dance isn’t valid, and the effects of the pandemic have hurt the existing dance scene even further. He believes a center for dance in Uganda would go a long way to rectifying many of the problems he perceives. Finally, Tebandeke discusses the need for role models because the experience of disability in Africa is much different than in Europe, and more role models would normalize and empower people with disabilities in Uganda.Text written by Emmaly Wiederholt. Tebandeke Joseph practices disability inclusion in Uganda and has set up platforms and projects that make people with and without disabilities in Africa believe in themselves. He believes dance is a language that all can access in an era of post colonialism and decolonization. He has worked in different locations such as the Freiburg contact improvisation festival (Germany 2019), East Africa Nights of Tolerance (Rwanda 2017), Tuzinne Festival Where Human Rights Dance (Uganda 2017 - 2018), Ubumuntu Arts Festival (Rwanda 2018) and Segou’ Art (Mali 2019). As an active choreographer, Tebandeke has created several productions with Candoco Dance Company (United Kingdom), Splash Dance Company (Uganda), Mambya Dance Company and Pamoja Dance Company (Kenya). Tebandeke also runs free workshops in his local communities once a week to promote inclusion in dance. He hopes to share contemporary dance to youth with and without disabilities. It is a passion that fuels him to this day.Joseph has been invited the teach in a festival in Helsingborg Sweden and is currently fundraising money for travel, visa and insurance costs. Any amount and each share helps him reach his goal. Thank you! https://gofund.me/db6b0da4 Check out DanceCasts awesome collaborator Emmaly Wiederholt's work at Stance on DanceAnd more about Silva does at Art Spark Texas check out the dance programs website, bodyshift.orgLink to Joseph Tebandeke's YouTube, is here. 

Changing the Community Perspective / Joseph Tebandeke

 In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Magda Kaczmarska, a dancer, researcher, and creative aging teaching artist based in New York City. Magda describes how her path as an immigrant with a background in dance and the sciences shaped her interest in and commitment to community based dance in the field of creative aging.  She revisits how exposure to Dance for PD®, a program by Mark Morris Dance Group for people with Parkinson’s led her to eventually leave her research career in pursuit of an MFA in Dance. An injury during grad school reinforced her career focus to expand access to creative aging for all communities. In NYC, she worked with the company Dances for a Variable Population with whom she supported 100s of diverse older adults in exploring their creative expression through movement. Now, as an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health, she is working to expand creative aging programs globally, building programs that support brain health across the life span and allying with communities of people living with dementia to amplify their creative voice. She expands on her belief that aging is a lifelong process, and at any point in our lives, our experience that can be translated into creative expression through movement. She invites us to consider and question how better we can support interconnectedness and meaningful creative expression for all as we age.Text by Emmaly WiederholtMagda Kaczmarska received her MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography and her BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from the University of Arizona. Magda has dedicated her career to utilizing the vehicle of dance and movement to amplify and support creative community. Her multidisciplinary work leverages a dual background in neuropharmacology and dance to build bridges between seemingly disparate sectors. Through all her work, she seeks to foster safe, creative, and inclusive spaces for discovery, agency and meaning. She believes all of us possess the ability to harness our creative expression to support building meaningful communities around us. As an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute, Magda builds collaborations to design and expand access to creative aging programs that support brain health across the lifespan.To learn more about Magda’s work, visit magdakaczmarska.com.To read more interesting dance articles visit, stanceondance.comTo learn more about Silva's work at Art Spark Dance visit, bodyshift.org  

Creative Expression through Creative Aging / Magda Kaczmarska

Rachel describes how she had always wanted to teach special education, but her path led her on a professional dance track first. She eventually switched careers to public education through the New York City Teaching Fellows Program. To her surprise, her principal (no “s”) requested she teach movement and dance across multiple school sites instead of general education serve as a classroom teacher, so she became a dance educator to students with severe disabilities. That experience restructured how she thought about movement, what movement means to students, and what goals benefit them. The inquiry led Rachel to become passionate about writing dance curriculum that infuses academics and developing creative assessment tools.Text by Emmaly Wiederholt Rachel McCaulsky (MSEL, MST, BFA) is the arts coordinator, remote learning unit coordinator, and movement teacher at P396K, a New York City Department of Education District 75 school servicing students with severe to profound disabilities. She incorporates movement into the school’s curriculum, creating units of study that fuse literacy and social studies with dance. Her movement units have been published multiple times in the NYC Department of Education Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in Dance. Rachel holds a master’s degree in Educational Leadership, a dual master’s degree in Childhood Education and Childhood Special Education, and a bachelor’s degree of fine arts in Dance. She has performed with Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Ballet Hispanico, Ailey II, and Dallas Black Dance Theatre. You can find Rachel's frog life cycle unit here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZS03Y2q_3yVUwI1nmGkcxl3wSfs-ctLn

What Movement Means to the Student / Rachel McCaulsky

Advocating for Inclusive Dance in the Public SchoolsIn this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews New York-based dance educator and advocate Sandi Stratton-Gonzalez. Sandi shares her dance beginnings and describes how she always identified as a teacher, even as she pursued performance opportunities, which directly led to her career as a dance educator in the public schools. She ended up working for 20 years at the first fully inclusive public school in the country, where there was also a robust performing arts program. Sandi reflects on the value of those experiences and how they informed her later work in city-wide efforts to represent dance educators and advocate for students with disabilities. She talks about how she’s staying active in the field post-retirement and adapting to online spaces.Text by Emmaly Wiederholt, founder of Stance On Dance. Sandi Stratton-Gonzalez taught dance to children with special needs in inclusion and self-contained classrooms for more than 20 years at PS 372 in Brooklyn. Recently retired from the classroom, Sandi is the coordinator of the Arnhold Programs for Dance Educators and the Dance Transition Team Leader at the Office of Arts and Special Projects in NYC. She is a professional development facilitator with the Arts for Students with Disabilities Team (NYC), advocacy director for the NYS Dance Education Association and teaches dance for students with disabilities for NDEO. A member of NDEO since 2005, Sandi works with the NDEO Dance and Disabilities Task Force, whose goal is to increase the organization’s capacity to support the dance and disability community. She is co-author (with C. Gallant and D. Duggan) of Dance Education for Diverse Learners: A Special Education Supplement to the Dance Blueprint and has been published in Dance: Current Selected Research Volume 7 and Dance Education in Practice, where she is a member of the editorial board. Sandi was an adjunct professor at Hofstra University from 2008-2018, teaching Dance in Elementary Education. Prior to teaching fulltime, Sandi was the founding artistic director of Soundance Repertory Company (1984-1999), and her choreography has been presented throughout the Northeast.

Advocating for Inclusive Dance in the Public Schools / Sandi Stratton-Gonzales

In this episode he describes how he reluctantly came to dance after learning about it from another wheelchair user, and how he found integrated dance to be radically different than the dances of his culture. Kadar reflects on the therapeutic and social benefits of dance, and how performing boosted his confidence as both a person with a disability and as an immigrant. He shares more about his involvement with an all-wheelchair group that improvises about the environment and accessibility, as well as why he decided to become a member of DanceAbility Finland’s board to promote dance to other disabled immigrants.Text by Emmaly Wiederholt.This episode was originally part of X Dance Festival. This episode was published also at Stance on Dance.  

Dance as Integration / Kadar Kristan

You can see Perch on Tuesday the 8th of June 2021. This performance is donation based and you can register here. Perch is part of the X Dance Festival 2021.  You can find out more about Amy Voris and Katye Coe and about their impressive work in the field of dance and Somatics. 

X Dance Festival / Perch by Amy Voris and Katye Coe

 In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Tali Wertheim and Hai Cohen, artistic directors of Vertigo Power of Balance, an Israeli based inclusive dance company. Hai describes how he came to dance almost by accident, meeting Tali in a workshop led by Adam Benjamin that culminated in a performance. Tali shares how she and Hai felt that contact improvisation and inclusive dance needed to continue in Israel. They fervently studied Adam Benjamin’s exercises, and within a year Vertigo Power of Balance was born. Tali and Hai speak about how they developed their teacher trainings for one teacher with and one teacher without a disability, as well as their summer intensive programs. They also share the process developing their most recent piece, Shape on Us, choreographed by Sharon Fridman, through a pandemic and war. Hai describes how he was struck by the raw and real way in which Sharon chose to display disability in the piece.Text by Emmaly Wiederholt. You can learn more about Vertigo Power of Balance on this link. This episode was originally recorded for X Dance Festival.This episode is published also at Stance on Dance. Photo by Yoel Levy.

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