Model and Strategy
EMPATHY: It’s unusual to see people with disabilities performing and collaborating as EQUALS with nondisabled dancers. Integrated dance gives disabled people the rare opportunity to see their culture and life experience reflected in live performance and gives everybody permission to stare and watch. From this, empathy grows and stereotypes about disability and ideas about human potential are transformed.
DISCOVERY: Most people can’t imagine that a disabled person would be able to dance. Ability Amplified explodes the idea that dance is only for the nondisabled, providing the public the chance to discover the true inclusiveness of dance. Integrated dance offers choreographers and dancers a radically-expanded dance vocabulary to explore.
DIVERSITY: While over 20% of the population is disabled, disability continues to be left out of conversations about equity both within and beyond the arts. Ability Amplified will highlight disabled people as a vital part of a diverse community.
Impact
Ability Amplified has potential for longterm impacts for both Dancers' Group and AXIS. For DG, collaborations are always opportunities to stay in touch with what’s happening in the dance community. This is essential to our viability as an organization, as it is through understanding the needs of its community that DG can provide relevant services in support of artists. DG expects that this project will help it more effectively serve dance artists with disabilities through all of its programs.
For AXIS, a project of this scale has the potential to greatly expand its visibility, bringing it closer to achieving its mission to change the face of dance and disability.
At a time when physically integrated dance is receiving important recognition, Ability Amplified has the potential to leverage this moment, making a lasting impact on the viability of integrated dance and the disabled artists who choreograph and perform.
Leadership
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Wayne Hazzard
Executive Director