Dancing Disability Justice

Contact improvisation (CI), a multi-generational improvisational dance form, is in a critical moment in which many older dancers are navigating new modes of participation as they begin to identify with an aging and disabled body. Some dancers understand their trajectory as one of loss, which is consistent with a western cultural logic of aging that privileges young, non-disabled bodies, especially in the dance world. At the same time, others are pushing for greater accessibility in CI, and no longer accepting the empty promises of a model that uses inclusion-based rhetoric without truly committing to solidarity, accessibility, and allyship. As a disabled researcher in Disability Studies and a CI dancer myself, I developed movement curricula to teach at an annual gathering of the midwest CI community. In these workshops and community dialogues, I ask the following question: if we embrace Disability Justice principles such as sustainability, recognizing wholeness, collective access, intersectionality, and building coalition[1], can we rewire our orientations to our bodies and dance practices to maximize accessibility, expand our commitment to solidarity, and move toward more sustainable dance practices? This paper will highlight the process of (1) recognizing the need for Disability Justice in this community (2) creating movement curricula that addressed the need, and (3) working with the community to shift the culture into one that embraces Disability Justice and grows through its solidarity with marginalized groups.

[1] Patty Berne, “Disability Justice – A Working Draft,” Sins Invalid, June 9, 2015. Accessed July 14, 2019: https://www.sinsinvalid.org/blog/disability-justice-a-working-draft-by-patty-berne.