EveryBody Can Dance

04/04/2024

*** Call for Collaborators! ***

AXIS Dance Company is seeking graphic designers, photographers, composers and costumers for upcoming creative projects. Could this be you? We'd love to hear from you –– contact us to share your work and ideas at https://bit.ly/AXIS-Collaborating-Artists or through the link in bio.

Based in Berkeley, California, AXIS collaborates with disabled, non-disabled, and neurodiverse artists to create world-class productions that challenge perceptions of dance and disability. Learn more at axisdance.org

Deadline to submit: April 30th, 2024 at 11:59pm PST

Photo by David DeSilva

[Image Description: AXIS Dancers Alaja and Julie pose in energetic unison. Julie sits on her wheelchair, which is turned on its side, and lifts one leg up with bent knee, bringing both arms up horizontally with elbows bent. Alaja holds the same pose, but they are standing on one foot instead of sitting. Both dancers wear black, blue and purple. Text around a rainbow gradient border reads "Now Seeking: Composers / Costume Designers."]

04/03/2024

The workshop takes inspiration from Maggie's choreographic process centered around care, access, and alleviating pain, most recently explored in her recent performance of Radiate as part of the Steppenwolf's 2024 LookOut series. We'll use improvisational exercises that use repetition to develop warmth, collectively building a community phrase that we'll perform together at the end of the workshop.
Register to join this incredible class THIS SUNDAY at the Midwest Inclusive Dance Festival! https://forms.gle/Rx8NNBxpff9ynK35A

Maggie Bridger is a sick and disabled dance artist, fiber artist, organizer, and scholar interested in reimagining pain through the creative process. Maggie is a 2022 City of Chicago Individual Artist Program grantee and has held artist residencies through High Concept Labs, the Chicago Cultural Center's Learning Lab, Synapse Arts, and the Chicago Dancemakers Forum. Her work has been shown at Elevate Chicago Dance 2022, The Steppenwolf, The Art Institute of Chicago, Cottey College, CounterBalance, and The Plant, among others. She is a co-founder, along with collaborator Sydney Erlikh, of the community-run Inclusive Dance Workshop Series and a founding member of Unfolding Disability Futures, a local collective of disabled performing artists. Maggie is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Disability and Human Development. She is Membership Manager for the Dance Studies Association and serves on the organizing committee for the Chicago Dance Studies Working Group.
Image Description: Maggie, a fat, white woman, stands in the center of a black stage wearing a dark turquoise nightgown and a heating pad strapped around her stomach. She stretches one arm above her, looking over the other shoulder at the small, blue floral wall where her heating pad is plugged in.

04/03/2024

08/06/2022

07/29/2022

Nothing About Us Without Us

This is more than a statement – it’s a principle underlying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It expresses the conviction of people with disabilities that they know what is best for them. It means that people with disabilities should be front and center as visible leaders sharing their voices and their experiences, not as objects of pity and stigma.

The phrase aligns perfectly with BodyWise Dance’s artistic approach. Unfortunately, the “Nothing about us without us” principle often doesn’t include people with developmental and learning disabilities, but that’s not the case at BodyWise Dance. Celebrating our tenth anniversary in 2022, BodyWise Dance is an inclusive dance lab of neurodiverse performers.

We are excited to tell you more about our mission, our company members and our projects for school, home and community use in upcoming posts. Please follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn!

07/29/2022

Nice to meet you, I’m Margot Greenlee

Let’s start from the beginning. Margot launched BodyWise Dance ten years ago after a satisfying career as a soloist and then a company member with the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Expanding her definition of dance-making and its role in community life has been a leading impulse behind Greenlee’s vision ever since.

“Back in 2012, I was a teaching artist in a pediatric intensive care unit. I worked with the kids to make dances right there in their hospital rooms. Were they tired from a bad night’s sleep or medication? Okay, we tried some gentle stretching. Were they bored (and probably worried) waiting on medical procedures? Well then, we took a break by dancing to their favorite music. In those short dance sessions, I saw kids transform. Suddenly they were no longer a passive patient. They had agency. They were makers, creators.”

Margot has never left this sphere. Becoming well-known for her experience in community arts engagement, in 2015 she was asked to launch a movement arts program at MVLE, an organization that serves individuals with disabilities. This community is the local laboratory for Greenlee’s work across the US and abroad.

Margot Greenlee is an American choreographer and founder of BodyWise Dance. Her dance-making celebrates the virtuosity of everyday movement. People-oriented, positive, and practical, her choreography is an expression of joy.

Join the FREE online class every weekday at 10 am ET at
https://www.bodywisedance.com/live-morning-class/

07/24/2022

Be sure to tune in to my segment next week! You can live stream it at pbsbooks.org on July 26th at 5pm ET.

Thank you for helping bring this program together as a part of your “Access for All” commitment to disability inclusion in
Image Description: A red graphic with the cover of Rolling Warrior, a photo of Judy Heumann, and the logos for Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace, GPB in the Community, PBS Books, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. White text on the graphic reads “Rolling Warrior. Judith Heumann. Tuesday, July 26th at 5pm ET. PBSBOOKS.ORG. This program is part of ‘Access for All: Advancing Girl Scouts’ Commitment to Disability Inclusion”

05/31/2022

Midwest Film Festival's (MFF) June First Tuesdays event will feature Salome Chasnoff's CODE OF THE FREAKS. This documentary challenges the realism of Hollywood's portrayals of disabled people throughout decades of western filmmaking. On June 7th we hope you will join us for an important conversation...