This one may venture slightly away from Crohn's for a moment, but I promise I'll circle back to it. I just need to get this off my chest, be patient with me for a minute.
I went to a panel earlier this week on dance and disability. The panel itself was incredibly diverse, with disabled dancers and choreographers, a research scientist, educators, and a dance critic, among others. Each person had a unique perspective on the subject, which made the discussion interesting and inspired a lot of thought.
However, there was this moment about half-way through the night when one of the panelists whose experience was mainly in the dance world said that there's really no difference between a modern dance company like Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) and a physically integrated dance company like Axis Dance Company, both of whom just happen to be showing in Chicago this weekend.
To give a brief overview, Merce Cunningham was a pioneer in modern/post-modern dance. His company is among the most respected in the world. The bodies in MCDC look exactly like what you think of when you think the word "dancer." They are lean, long and incredibly talented. Granted, this wasn't always necessarily the case, Merce experimented with "untrained" bodies in his early years as a choreographer, but for many years, his dancers have been the elite of the dance world. Axis Dance Company has been a pioneer in its own right. They're among a relative few companies whose cast includes disabled bodies alongside non-disabled, "traditional" dancing bodies. Because of this, they fall under the category of a physically integrated dance company. This is an emerging artform, and Axis is at the forefront of the movement. (Pun totally intended.)
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