integrated dance

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Finnish artist/theater director Teemu Mäki and Finnish dance artist Maija Nurmio about their collaborative work Éliane, which is based on the French composer Éliane Radigue's composition L'Île Re-Sonante. Teemu describes why he was drawn to Radique’s experimental music and how a collaboration sprung up between himself and Maija. Maija shares how Radique’s music had a physical effect on her, how they negotiated creating a work that included choreography, film, visuals and Teemu's spoken-word poem that was influenced by the events of a mass murder that happened in Norway a decade ago. The work wrestles with mortality, the meaning of art, and the purpose of experimental music/art-making.

Text by Emmaly Wiederholt. 

You can find more information about each one of them, by clicking their name Éliane Radigue, Teemu Mäki and Maija Nurmio.

This episode was originally recorded to be part of X Dance Festival 2021. 

DanceCast partners with Stance on Dance .

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews her collaborators from the Discussing Disability in Dance Book Project: dancer/writer Emmaly Wiederholt, and visual artist Liz Brent-Maldonado. The project has been a four-year process interviewing 25 professional dancers around the world who identify as having a disability. Together, Silva, Emmaly, and Liz discuss the impetus for the project, what themes they've seen emerge, how they've grown in their understanding of disability while working on it, and how they hope the book project serves as a jumping point for other perspectives and conversations regarding disability in dance.

To learn more about the Discussing Disability in Dance Book Project, visit http://stanceondance.com/discussing-disability-in-dance/.
And to donate to the GoFundMe to cover illustrator, designer, printing and audiobook fees, visit https://gofund.me/1d44d437

Turning Setbacks into Comebacks

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Zazel-Chavah O’Garra, founder and artistic director of
ZCO/DANCE PROJECT, a physically integrated dance company in New York City. Zazel shares the story of
her benign brain tumor that left her partially paralyzed and how she began her dance company after
performing at the Brain Tumor Foundation’s Awareness Day. She also discusses what her company is
doing to stay active through the pandemic, how she works to prepare students with disabilities to
pursue a career in the arts, and why she urges dance majors in college to pursue double majors.

Photo credit to Meri Greene.

Text by Emmaly Wiederholt.

Interview with Karen Daly; Being Seen as A Dancer

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Karen Daly, a dancer in Eugene, OR with DanceAbility
International. Karen shares the story of her entrance into dance in her 40s and some highlights from her
career working with DanceAbility. She also discusses the process of creating performances through
DanceAbility’s framework, and how the principles of sensation, relationship, time and design serve to
augment the performers’ ability to communicate to each other and to the audience. Finally, she reflects
on how it’s sometimes still difficult to see herself and be seen as a dancer.

Text by Emmaly Wiederholt

http://stanceondance.com
https://www.bodyshift.org
https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Ride-One-Legged-Journey-Self-Acceptance-ebook/dp/B077YB9VVL/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=joy+ride+my+one+legged&qid=1574101046&sr=8-1
https://www.artsparktx.org

Interview with Roman Baca; Dancing the Veteran Experience

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Roman Baca, who is an Iraq War veteran, the director of EXIT12 Dance Company, and an MFA candidate in Choreography at Trinity Laban Conservatoire in London. He describes his upcoming MFA final performance, which seeks to choreographically share the experiences of five veterans on the lawn at Trinity Laban. He also shares his transition back to civilian life after serving in the Marine Corps, how finding dance again was necessary to overcome his internal anger and frustration after serving in Iraq.
Text by Emmaly Wiederholt

http://exit12danceco.org
https://vimeo.com/312834658
http://www.stanceondance.com
http://www.bodyshift.org

There’s No Such Thing As “We Can’t Do Something”

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Karenne Koo, a dance artist in Tucson, AZ, committed to developing and practicing multidisciplinary approaches to encourage and stimulate the art of inclusive dance as an instrument for building community. Here, she discusses her involvement with the Mettler-based dance community and the breadth of her outreach work – from working with survivors of trafficking and abuse, to children with severe medical issues, to low income families, to adults and children with diverse abilities, to horses. She reflects on how her own community makes all the facets of her work possible.

https://www.karennekoo.net
https://www.dancesequences.com
https://www.barbaramettler.org
https://www.artsparktx.org
https://www.bodyshift.org
https://www.stanceondance.com

Interview with Michaela Knox: Expanding the Dance Community

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Michaela Knox, a DanceAbility instructor who recently initiated an inclusive dance program in Maine. Michaela looks back on her early desire to work with people who don’t identify as dancers. She discusses her time working with schoolchildren through the National Dance Institute of New Mexico, and how she eventually felt like she couldn’t effectively teach or integrate students who might be Deaf or non-verbal. Since training in DanceAbility, Michaela shares more about her budding inclusive dance program in Maine and her longer-term goals.
Text by Emmaly Wiederholt

http://stanceondance.com
http://bodyshift.org
http://www.sparkdanceprogram.org

“It Comes Down to Loving Movement”

Text by Emmaly Wiederholt

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Ginger Lane, a Chicago based dancer, teacher and
choreographer. Ginger shares how the themes of dance and disability activism have come together in
her career, specifically through her involvement with Access Living and MOMENTA Dance Company. She
discusses the struggle that physically integrated dance faces in being seen as a legitimate art form, the
slow progress in the US as compared to Europe, and the difficulty building repertoire in physically
integrated dance.

https://www.accessliving.org
http://momentadances.org
https://3arts.org/artist/ginger-lane/
https://stanceondance.com
https://bodyshift.org

Interview with Sally Davison; The Language of the Body is the Oldest Language.

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Sally Davison, a dancer, choreographer, and master
DanceAbility teacher in the UK and Finland. Sally discusses the strength of DanceAbility as valuing
participant-led knowledge and making inclusion possible. She asserts that DanceAbility is not just about
disability, but about the beauty of giving space to others and moving beyond one’s own patterns to
listen to someone else’s vocabulary or timing. Silva and Sally also discuss how embryology and birth, as
well as basic movement patterns, can affect a person’s sense of body and self.

Text by Emmaly Wiederholt

https://www.bodyshift.org
http://stanceondance.com
http://www.danceabilityfinland.com
http://danceabilityfinland.com/kaaos/

Access is Good for Everybody

Text by Emmaly Wiederholt

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Aaron Wheeler-Kay, creative director of Echo Theater
Company in Portland, Oregon. Aaron, a master DanceAbility teacher, shares how he applied
DanceAbility to create an accessible circus arts space, as well as leverage his privilege to feature and
support other voices. After teaching DanceAbility to his staff, he describes the shift in culture at the
company and how creating an accessible space isn’t a checkbox but an ongoing process and continuous
reassessment.

Aaron Wheeler-Kay lives in Portland, Oregon, where he is the creative director of Echo Theater
Company, a non-profit with a focus on combining different performance disciplines including circus arts,
dance and devised theater to produce original performance works. Aaron teaches dance, acrobatics and
aerial arts to people of all ages and abilities. He became certified to teach DanceAbility in 2016.

https://www.bodyshift.org
http://www.echotheaterpdx.org
https://www.danceability.com
http://stanceondance.com

Dance Applied to Real Life

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Margot Greenlee, a choreographer, theater director and
artist educator based in Washington DC. Here, Margot discusses her involvement with Jacob’s Pillow’s
Curriculum in Motion® and her own project, BodyWise Dance, which provide dance classes and
workshops for individuals and groups in healthcare, education and corporate settings that offer
movement as a way of learning and processing information. She details one program of BodyWise
wherein dance and theater practitioners work with a group of people with intellectual disabilities to
create and perform an original show with the goal of using performance as an opportunity for community integration.

Text by Emmaly Wiederholt

http://stanceondance.com
http://www.bodywisedance.com
https://www.jacobspillow.org/programs/community/jacobs-pillow-curriculum-in-motion/
https://www.bodyshift.org

Experiencing the Democracy of Dance

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Connie Vandarakis, a master DanceAbility teacher
in Philadelphia. Connie shares her unusual entrance to dance, her experience in academia, how
chronic hip pain and a hip replacement led her to DanceAbility, and why she deeply believes in
the curriculum of DanceAbility. Her drive to serve in the arts felt answered by DanceAbility’s
mission and vision. She describes how the use of improvisation calls for everyone to be
responsible in the moment, both in and out of the dance studio.

https://www.danceability.com
http://stanceondance.com
http://www.bodyshift.org
https://www.who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/report.pdf

Interview with Jana Meszaros; Promoting Freedom and Equality

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Jana Meszaros, a DanceAbility instructor in Eugene, OR.
Jana describes her small-town upbringing, how she discovered DanceAbility through contact
improvisation, and her road to becoming a Master Teacher. She shares her belief in DanceAbility as a
tool for creating experiences where disabled and non-disabled dancers can dance together, as well as
her preference for the term ‘facilitator’ rather than ‘teacher’ because everyone in the room can always
learn from each other.
Text by Emmaly Wiederholt and photo by Jennifer James Long

http://www.danceability.com
http://www.bodyshift.org
http://stanceondance.com

Exploring Her Own Access and Excellence

PODCAST BY SILVA LAUKKANEN TEXT BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT
In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews India Harville, a dance artist and teacher in the Bay Area.
India shares her journey to inclusive dance through yoga, body work, and her ongoing experience with
temporary paralysis. She also describes her recent one-woman show, Enough, which explored a
recovery process for her recurring feelings of not feeling black enough, disabled enough, or able-bodied
enough, as well as her future goal of making a video piece about dancers who cannot regularly and
easily leave their homes. She discusses how to track progress and measure rigor when common
assessments cannot apply to her.

http://lovingtheskinyouarein.com
http://www.stanceondance.com
http://www.bodyshift.org
http://www.danceability.com

Maylis was visiting me here in the US after dancing and studying with Axis Dance Co in their annual summer intensive. While we were finishing our lunch we chatted about her work and future plans. Maylis shared her visions for her next choreographies and where she is currently with her own work. Thank you Maylis for being so open and willing to share.

MAYLIS ARRABIT
I took my first class / dance class in 2011 with AXIS in Oakland, California. It's there that everything has changed!
In 2012, after finishing my Masters in organizational psychology and returning to my native region, I joined Co&ciedanse (Biarritz) as a student and dancer, a contemporary dance company for amateurs led by Deva Macazaga. Thanks to her, I have learnt a lot for two years in contemporary dance and contact improvisation, grew a lor as a dancer, each time discovering new possibilities of movement and I even participated in the creation of BoxFloor, for Biarritz dance festival, Le temps d'aimer la danse (2013) . Following the departure of Deva from Biarritz, I have kept taking mainstream contemporary dance classes with Wyllia Lapouge and various teachers in France and Spain.

I enriched and keep enriching my knowledge of inclusive practice by taking workshops with Adam Benjamin, Candoco dance company, Jordi Cortes and more regularly Stopgap dance company for which I have a real admiration.
As a dance artist, I participated in Integrance (2014-2015), a EU funded project, which brought together 4 companies from Belgium, Scotland, France and England to promote the practice of inclusive dance. In March 2015, I also danced in Gorputza, an dance piece choreographed by Jordi Cortés as part of the festival dFeria, in San Sebastian (Spain). Later, I started a choreographic work on a solo called In (-) Between, a search currently in parentheses. At the end of 2016, I chose to focus on dance and I am currently working on my first project as an artistic leader, Habra Que Ponerse Cachas, a duet for two male dancers with and without disabilities. In 2017, I have joined InterDanse, a newly based dance company, under the artistic leadership of Tomos Young (Normandie, France). We premiered InterDanse's first creation, #Onesttoutslashrien in July 2017, as part of Les Sorties de bain festival, Granville, France and hope that it's just the beginning.

http://www.interdansecie.com
http://www.bodyshift.org

Choreography for An Arm and A Half

PODCAST BY SILVA LAUKKANEN; PHOTOGRAPHY BY TIM ISOM AND TEXT BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Julie Crothers, a freelance dancer and emerging choreographer in the Bay Area. After dancing with AXIS Dance Company for three years, Julie began exploring her own choreographic voice. She describes the impetus of her piece Secondhand, which explores alternate uses of her collection of prosthetic arms. Julie shares stories and perspectives of what prosthesis has come to mean for her, and how she came to the decision in her early 20s to not use a prosthetic arm day-to-day. She goes on to explain how she feels able to dance more freely without filling in that space, and her growing curiosity about what her body uniquely does.

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Gretchen Pick, executive director of Young Dance in Minnesota’s Twin Cities region. Young Dance offers youth classes and performance opportunities, and started to include dance classes for children and adults with disabilities in 2010 after realizing nothing else was being offered locally. Gretchen shares her belief in recognizing the uniqueness of individual bodies and supporting that expression, her passion for teaching, and how she’d like to expand and build upon Young Dance’s All Abilities program in the future.

http://www.youngdance.org
http://www.croiglan.com
http://www.bodyshift.org
http://stanceondance.com

Rethinking Assistive Technologies

PODCAST BY SILVA LAUKKANEN
In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Merry Lynn Morris, assistant director of dance at the
University of South Florida. One aspect of Merry Lynn’s work has involved inventing new assistive
technologies for disability dance, including a rolling dance chair with remote control, height change and
omni directionality. In this podcast, she discusses the relationship between freedom and control, how
her father’s disability shaped her view of disability and technology, and the importance of embedding
disability dance in the college curriculum.
Text by Emmaly Wiederholt

https://usf.academia.edu/MerryMorris
http://www.graphicstudio.usf.edu/CAM/cam_artinhealth.html
http://artsanddisability.blogspot.com/
http://www.revdance.org/
http://bodyshift.org
http://stanceondance.com
https://keshetarts.org

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Dwayne Scheuneman of REVolutions Dance in Tampa, Florida, whose background in wheelchair sports led him to co-founding Tampa’s first integrated dance company. Dwayne discusses his passion for education and the difficulty starting classes for children with disabilities from scratch, his relationship dancing with AXIS Dance Company and how it has informed the development of REVolutions Dance, and his international work in Russia and China teaching community workshops.
Text by Emmaly Wiederholt

http://www.revdance.org
http://www.stanceondance.com
http://bodyshift.org
http://www.cvent.com/events/2018-vsa-intersections-arts-and-special-education-conference/event-summary-0d1758f71722482784e571550614075d.aspx

In Between Dance and Musical Theater

PODCAST BY SILVA LAUKKANEN

In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Meredith Aleigha Wells, a dancer with Dancing Wheels Company in Cleveland, OH. The Massachusetts native has a background in musical theater, and started using a wheelchair while in college. She discusses the support she received in college, how the process of translating able-bodied dance onto her body has given her technical and choreographic skills, and the similarities and differences between having a disability in dance versus musical theater. She recently ended her contract with Dancing Wheels, and looks forward to freelancing more in musical theater.
Text by Emmaly Wiederholt

http://stanceondance.com
http://keshetarts.org
http://www.meredithaleighawells.wixsite.com/home
http://bodyshift.org