The Shadow
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – For Axis Dance Company, every performer brings a way to interpret the art. A dancer who uses a wheelchair offers an opportunity. A crutch can be an extension of the arm, or a third leg or simply a new angle.
“It’s about how you create the same image or idea of movement for someone with a different body,” said Nadia Adame, the company’s artistic director. “It creates more possibilities, it pushes creativity with what dance is.”
Axis Dance Company, based in Berkeley, California, is an award-winning ensemble of disabled, non-disabled, deaf and neurodiverse performers. The group visited the University of Virginia’s Grounds for a weeklong residency, hosted by UVA’s dance program, culminating in a Friday performance. Students had the opportunity to participate in workshops and classes with company members. Support from the UVA Arts Council helped make the visit possible.
“Working with professionals is just really, really cool. It’s like getting the chance to interview someone who’s an expert in their field,” Georgia Upson, a first-year student from Denver, said. “But at the same time, you’re on an equal playing field, because you’re making your own movement and moving together.From left to right, Hasushi, Drama department lecturer Cortney Lowinski and fourth-year dance students Emma Block and Elizabeth Moore talk during a workshop focused on accessibility in teaching. (Photo by Tom Daly)
In a Tuesday evening workshop, students from across Grounds were given movement prompts –to dance as if moving through water, or simply to twirl – to interpret. An Axis company member directed students to move closer to the ground, which prompted participants to crouch in a lizard pose or lie on their backs and swim their arms in the air.
Adame emphasizes what she calls “translation” of movements. A performer without the use of their legs can still plié, she said. They just use their upper body rather than their lower body for the movement. When prompted to twirl, one performer can pirouette while another spins in a wheelchair.
“This has expanded on my ideas of dance,” said Elizabeth Moore, a fourth-year student majoring in biology with a minor in dance.
Moore recently choreographed a piece for the dance program’s spring concert, and her choreography translated the same movement onto different body parts. “The class pushed me even further,” Moore said. Company members felt the same way.
“It’s been so nice to work with students who want to investigate new ways to make dance accessible and how to shift and open up their perspectives. They’ve opened mine,” Isaiah Newby, an Axis company member, said. “When you pour into students, they pour that back into you.”
Newby and fellow company member Alaja Badalich taught a composition class Tuesday, where she found students eager to learn. Axis dancers, drama and dance faculty and students, and other Charlottesville community members pose for a group photo. (Photo by Tom Daly)
“I didn’t go to college for dance myself; I was in a training program,” Badalich said. “So, something that excites me about talking to dance minors is that they’re getting an education in something else while they’re diving in creatively, and you can see that influences their practice.” During the class, Badalich and Newby set certain limitations to prompt students’ dancing.
“Often in the creative field, you can be overwhelmed that you have so many choices. Having something that confines you can be super freeing, because you can find creativity in your own interpretations,” Badalich said.
Education and outreach are key parts of Axis’ mission, Adame said.
In a class earlier this year, a dancer approached Adame and told her she was too dizzy to continue. In a typical class, a performer who couldn’t dance would sit to the side and take notes. Adame instead asked her to recreate the choreography seated, using her arms and fingers.
“When people get injured, they think, ‘Oh no, my career is over.’ I say, ‘No, this is when opportunities start,” Adame said. She would know. She injured her spinal cord, an injury that in a traditional dance setting might have been career-ending. Instead, it opened a new chapter.
“It was my artistic coming home. I try to give that to other people, and to give those opportunities to generations coming after me, so people know there’s space for them,” Adame said.
