AXIS on cover of New Mobility magazine!

AXIS was honored to grace the cover of this month’s New Mobility magazine. You can read the article on physically integrated dance online!

The last act of the 2008 Sins Invalid performance opened with a dark stage backlit with dusk-blue. To the sound of a pulsing Maori keening chant with techno highlights, wheelchair dancer Rodney Bell slowly lowered down onto the stage via cables. Sometimes dangling upside down, sometimes appearing to somersault, Bell, a T3-6 para, gyrated along the way. He slapped his chest and thighs — warlike gestures punctuated with grunts — and when he finally had all four wheels on the ground, his face, painted with traditional tattoos, appeared to the audience. The dance, sensual and aggressive, might have been a holy ritual.

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Open Rehearsal

On August 26, we held an open rehearsal, showing the results of working in the studio for two weeks on the creation of ODD with choreographer Shinchi Iova-Koga & cellist Joan Jeaunrenaud. The final performance will be an evening length work and will include members of Shinchi's company inkBoat.

Creating ODD!

On Monday we started with the creation of ODD a new work choreographed by inkBoat's Shinichi Iova-Koga with original music by Joan Jeaunerenaud. Here is a short photo impression.

Dancers Alice, Janet, Sebastian creating an arm phrase

The AXIS cast

Sonsheree, Alice & Janet

Artistic Director, Choreographer & Lighting Designer smiting plans in the studio

Review: 'Physically integrated' AXIS delivers moving performance

Review: 'Physically integrated' AXIS delivers moving performance

By JENNIFER BREWER

Published in The Portland Press Harald

The performers of AXIS Dance Company danced, rolled, spoke and sang their way through Saturday's program at Bates Dance Festival, in a gripping, moving and exciting performance.

AXIS is the groundbreaking dance troupe, founded in 1987, that has created a dialogue and re-evaluation of how disability does and does not affect artistic movement.

At Bates, performers included two fully able-bodied dancers, one with amputations and three in wheelchairs with different degrees of mobility. Their term for the company's makeup is "physically integrated.

Differences in physicality proved to be both central and almost superfluous to the performance. Every piece involved examination of physical ability and/or specific use of wheelchairs in the choreography. At the same time, the choreographic whole transcended reference to differing ability.

Each of the three pieces presented Saturday was created by a choreographer in collaboration with the dancers. Each included the spoken word, with or without music. Snatches of song and some skit-type acting were integrated, expanding the concept of onstage dance performance to be more multi-disciplinary and multi-textured.

"the beauty that was mine, through the middle, without stopping" (Joe Goode, choreographer), posed questions about image and ability, using two large wooden frames as frames and mirrors for the dancers.

"This is a picture of me, but not really me, in the end" was thematically spoken by Rodney Bell from his wheelchair and repeated later by Lisa Bufano. Bufano danced without prostheses in mirror poses with Janet Das on the other side of the frame. Later, Bufano returned to the stage with prostheses, moving with less fluidity, and said, "This is me, walking."

Here and in the next piece, "Vessel," associate director Sonsheree Giles performed sensual duets with Bell in which the two dancers seemed to meld. Bell made athletic use of his chair, including flipping over so that Giles could float and spin on a single wheel. Their limbs rose and entwined, in floor and chair work, challenging boundaries of perceived division and ability.

Bell and artistic director Judith Smith also challenged perceptions of ability by supporting the able-bodied dancers in falls and recoveries, and manually manipulating their bodies.

For "Vessel" (Alex Ketley, choreographer), the dancers' improvised words during movement were recorded and arranged by Carol Snow into an image-poem played over a background score.

Bell's "When you're planted, pushed down in something deep, you just want to push up" accompanied his lying on his back and then regaining his chair with help from Giles, in a posture suggestive of childbirth.

Alice Sheppard performed grand torso sweeps, balancing on her footrest and falling to her side, creating fascinating and complex geometries. Her recorded vocalizations were particularly telling in overall artistic terms, including the open-ended phrase, "In the absence of music..." and summary statement, "How do you talk about this when it's movement without words?"

"Light Shelter" (David Dorfman, choreographer) was an electric composition, with the creative use of onstage lighting symbolic of the dancers' sparking energy and athleticism.

Between lines of fluorescent lights at the front and back of the stage, Bell, Das, Giles, Sheppard and Sebastian Grubb flew, spun and contorted in group and solo movement. When they performed in a line, the jointly-created shapes were stunning, with almost frenetic movement punctuated by sudden stillness upon Smith's called-out instructions.

AXIS's performance gave concrete, non-euphemistic meaning to the term "differently-abled." Unconventional elements weren't gratuitous or distracting; instead, they enlarged and enhanced the choreography.

Each of the performers, whatever the status of their limbs, had moments of individual transcendence, with an unusually complete meshing -- for any dance troupe -- of all the dancers into a holistic onstage organism.

Jennifer Brewer is a freelance writer, teacher, musician and dancer who lives in Saco.

Just keepin' busy! :Bates Festival, Luna Kids, a focus group and a mixer

Well, lots going on in the AXIS Office per usual. The dancers are all back from Washington, DC and its nice to have them popping in during the day. They’ll be heading to Maine shortly for a residency at Bates Dance Festival. They will be conducting workshops and performing various works by choreographers David Dorfman, Alex Ketley and Joe Goode during the Bates Dance Festival.





I recently attended a lecture given at Mills College for Luna Kids Dance by Annika, our education director, and Bonnie, one of our dancers. The lecture was great seeing different clips of class/workshops and hearing different strategies/ideas for integrated dance classes.





I also attended AXIS very first Focus Group and our July board Meeting. While I can not inform you of the significant and important events which took place at our secret board meeting- ok, I’m kidding, I won’t bore you with dry administrative stuff, but there was a dancer/board mixer combined with really awesome food beforehand. The purpose of this Focus Group was to find out how AXIS could serve the community better. It was very interesting at the Focus Group hearing different ideas and opinions about dance and disability, and we’d love to hear from you!

- I don’t believe in barriers or caged beauty. There is no way in these fast times that we can define what dance is. We cannot even definer what art is. [Javier de Frutos, 2001]

Talented, trusting and nontraditional: AXIS Dance Company

By Molly F. McGill Special to the Sun Journal

“I think it’s important to keep pushing the boundaries in any art form."

So says Judith Smith, artistic director of the California-based AXIS Dance Company, a ground-breaking contemporary dance company made up of dancers both with and without disabilities.

For more than two decades, they have challenged the traditional definitions of what contemporary dance and dancers are, and can be, by creating and exploring new movement through physically integrated dance.

“We’re not a wheelchair dance company. We’re not a disabled dance company. We’re a contemporary dance company. We do things within our company that other companies can not, and it completely broadens the palette of dance,” said Smith.

AXIS has been credited with expanding the vocabulary of contemporary dance through its innovative movement. By incorporating dancers with different abilities, it is able to create new shapes, explore space and move in nontraditional ways, bringing a unique and exciting aspect to the stage of contemporary dance.

The innovative dance troupe will perform Friday and Saturday, July 30-31, as part of the Bates Dance Festival.

“There’s a lot of trust and a lot of risk taking that happens in our company,” said Sonsheree Giles, a five-year dance member of AXIS. “When I work with Judy who uses a power chair, I can push off and perch and fly through space a little differently or with more momentum; it’s a different or extended way of partnering. It opened me up and helped me to fall in love with dance all over again.”

Challenging stereotypes to help broaden the definition of dance has not been easy.

At first, dance critics were skeptical as to whether the performances could actually be considered dance or if it was a form of therapy. Through educational and outreach services, including countless seminars, residencies, workshops and demonstrations, the company has taken its work across the nation and overseas, earning numerous accolades and helping to bring light — and acceptance — to the developing genre.

AXIS has gained the respect of the dance community, in part, because of its proven cutting-edge performances involving a number of world-renown choreographers, designers and composers. The company uses commissioned work and in-house and guest choreographers to create its touring repertory. It currently has more than 60 repertory works, two evening-length pieces and two works aimed at younger audiences. AXIS has also been commissioned to create pieces for several different dance festivals, including the Bates Dance Festival back in 2003.

Returning to the Bates stage seven years later, AXIS will present three new pieces: "Light Shelter" by well-known choreographer David Dorfman, "Vessel" created by Alex Ketley and "A Room with No View" by Sonya Delwaide.

“Our work really lends itself to a lot of different audiences,” said Smith. “Our repertory is very theatrical, very physical with really, really good dancing and (people) are going to see a vocabulary of dancing that they probably didn’t even know exists.”

Go and do:
WHAT: AXIS Dance Company lecture/demonstration
WHEN & WHERE: 7:30 p.m. Monday, July 26, Alumni Gym, Bates College
ADMISSION: Free

WHAT: AXIS Dance Company performance
WHEN & WHERE: 8 p.m. Friday, July 30, Schaeffer Theatre, Bates College
A question-and-answer session with the artists will follow.
TICKETS: $24/$12 for seniors and students

WHAT: AXIS Dance Company performance
WHEN & WHERE: 8 p.m. Saturday, July 31, Schaeffer Theatre, Bates College
A preperformance lecture, "Inside Dance," with dance writer Debra Cash will begin at 7:30 p.m.
TICKETS: $24, $12 seniors/students
FOR TICKETS: Call 786-6161 from 1 to 5 p.m. Monday-Saturday

find new ways to fall by Amber DiPietra

A few dozen volunteer dancers, disabled and non-disabled, myself included, joined Axis Dance for a site-based performance at Yerba Buena Gardens. We rehearsed for a few weeks in the park on weekday evenings. The summer-scape of downtown San Francisco. Rush hour, trash can drums, church bells, sudden bright gusts of wind, fog beveling the park into quartz and moonstone facets, the bougainvillea along the railings above the falls, rushing up into that fuscia underbrush glow to lean over the railing and undulate in unison. Coppery green, glinting from reflecting pools. But mostly the white noise of the falls. And then, the day of the performance, the droning, whirly-gigging, keening, cuckoo clock set free sounds of Caroline Penwarden and her orchestra. Sonsheree Giles of Axis directed the choreography.

This experience made me happier than anything. Closest I've come to really being able to meditate. And, skim out endlessly on a (tide) line (in a poem) without any words. Almost home, almost the gulf, being beside the waterfall and with others. Aquatic, hot, breathing under other elements. (Not making it to Florida this summer--but enclosed a little prayer for the waters in this doing, over and over again.)

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