Navigating Dance and Disability
I don’t have a ‘good body for ballet’.
I was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes when I was fifteen.
The first thing a doctor said to me was to ‘find a hobby besides dance’.
The demands on the body in ballet are extreme, both in capability and aesthetic. There is little room in the industry for anyone with special needs or conditions that make the body in any way, unreliable. Beyond being thin enough, pretty enough, flexible and strong enough, a body with an illness like diabetes is not a ‘good body’ for dance.
A director once told me that I was an embarrassment to myself and the company because I needed to pause in rehearsal to check my blood sugar.
Even in cases where disabled bodies are welcomed in dance, we are often told to just ‘do what we can’. And no one wants to feel welcomed but inferior. It is because of demands and treatment like this, that there is hesitancy from the disabled community with participating in dance.
The thing is, I don’t know a single person who wouldn’t change something about their body, who feels ‘less than perfect’ for some reason or another.
If the dance world continues to exclude those of us who don’t fit the ‘perfect body’ mold, it will never be any different than it is now. And lots of people who would love to move their bodies will never see what they are capable of instead of the traditional ways our bodies fall short of however is deciding the expectations.
What I have experienced with diabetes and disability is that I often need more time, or have to find different methods and tools. This can be anything from medication like insulin, to people that I rely on. I’m not embarrassed for needing these assets in my life. I feel lucky that they are available to me.
What I am finding as a teacher and as a person coming to terms with my own disability is that to move past these fears and obstacles takes a balance between patience and courage, and definitely a sense of humor.
Disability has taken a lot of my traditional tools as a dancer. Nerve damage has made it so that my feet won’t point anymore, my ankles wobble, I can’t feel the floor or push off for a jump. What it has given to me is a strengthened and wider network of tools, a sense of community from people when my limitations created opportunities to connect. I have learned that the things that take the most courage are not always the most grand or obvious. It has taught me to be patient.
A limitation can be a springboard to seeing things from a new perspective.
In this way, I hope to push myself as an artist and to stretch the boundaries of the dance world.
