I used to think that the very idea of me, dancing, was completely stupid. I'm just writing a few words to tell you why I am now hoping to earn my living, by helping other people experience the liberation and fun that dancing has given me. I still meet people who have the same idea as I used to have, about people with impairments dancing. The aim of my work is to change that. I'm certainly not in the business of providing "therapy" to other people with disabilities, but, if health organisations are prepared to pay me to do that, I can't afford to turn down the work, and will just hope to change people's attitudes from the inside out.
My first exposure to the dance experience was in '96, when I, and a friend from West Kirby PHAB, attended an inclusive dance residency at I.M Marsh College in Liverpool, run by the CANDOCO dance company. The experience really opened my mind, as I saw how they worked with the abilities of the course participants, and saw that no disability was a barrier to dance. I really enjoyed that week, and the excitement of performing in public to an appreciative audience. During this residency with CANDOCO, I met Sara Thomas, a community dance professional, who engineered my involvement with CANDOCO, and who has been my dance mentor and friend ever since. (As I was without the means to pay the cost of getting myself and friend across the water to Liverpool to attend this course, a dear friend from Liverpool, Dr Janet Heyes, found the funding from somewhere, to help us hire a taxi to get there.) It was not long after this, that West Kirby PHAB club was awarded a grant to run their own dance project. In those days I was a member of PHAB, I am now the chairman of my local branch. We worked for months, in cooperation with a well established inclusive dance company, INDEPENDANCE, and produced two pieces of dance work which we performed to large audiences on the Wirral. We called ourselves "Absolutely Phabulous". I felt very sad when this project ended. It had made me feel much better about my own physicality, and a great experience of cooperative working with other very positive disabled people.
A couple of years passed when I had little chance to dance. I was very busy setting myself up to live independently in my own home, and working as a committee member for many organisations concerned with improving the lives of disabled people. I still longed inwardly to have that experience of dancing again.
In the '90s, I was a very new, "user" of AAC, that is augmentative and alternative communication. For the first 31 years of my life, I had very limited communication skills, due to cerebral palsy. I earlier mentioned West Kirby PHAB club, and that through this organisation, I got my first dance experience. It was also through the generosity and fundraising efforts of friends from this club that I got my first electronic communication aid and so my first experience of producing spoken words. My first aid was a true "Liberator", and I was impatient to learn to use it quickly. It was not as easy as I had hoped, and many, many, long hours of work followed before I learned to use it effectively. In those days, I attended a day centre, where a member of staff went to train to teach me to use my aid. Due to the great demands on his time, from other clients of the centre, he was not able to give me the amount of training needed to get completely proficient on my aid, but he helped me to translate my thoughts and feelings into words, which we programmed into my communication aid, and which expressed things that I had been bursting to say for all my life. This first writing effort became the poem, which I later put to music, and now sometimes dance to. To hear the song and read the poem, go to my
Music page. I was thrilled to be able to recite a poem which said so much, and entered a street entertainer's contest in Liverpool. I won no prizes!!! But, it conquered my anxiety about whether I could perform in front of complete strangers. I liked the feeling.
I now saw myself as a performer and artist, and attended events run by the North West Disabled Artists Forum, which enabled me to meet and exchange ideas with other disabled artists. In '99, NWDAF ran an arts workshop leader's course at LIPA, Liverpool Institute of the Performing Arts. After attending this course, I gained a professional development qualification in Workshop Skills for disabled artists, and also met many people involved with performance art. I used what knowledge I had gained about dance, to build a dance workshop scheme which I could use to pass on my love of dance to other people. At around this time, I also attended, at LIPA, a touch improvisation session, led by Emry Blackwell, and Carolyn Stewart from Oregon, which reinforced my ideas that a person with severe communication impairments could still have the presence, to be in charge of, and direct a workshop, using the assistance of a communication partner. I was convinced now, that I could do this with my dance workshop, my electronic communication aid, and support from my personal assistants.
I was fortunate to reach this stage in my journey at the time of the Millennium, and gained a substantial award from the millennium commission, to run dance workshops and produce a performance piece. "Cosmic Celebrations", performed at Pacific Rd, Birkenhead, to an invited audience of about 200, was the culmination of a year's very hard work. I organised and ran dance workshops for a year, at Hoylake community centre. I wrote the music for the dance, simultaneously choreographing and practising the piece with my dancers. My grant paid all the expenses of this work, including the time of a dance mentor, ( I used Sara) the specialist transport to get my dancers to the workshops, support staff to help us, the hall hire, costumes, publicity and showcasing costs.
This was a one man operation, as I did all the work and organising, including the lighting plan for the final performance. I gained a vast amount of experience from this project, but no financial reward for myself, which at that time, I didn't mind, as I was gaining so much in experience.
Following this project, requests for me to work with other groups began to arrive. I gave a dance workshop at LIPA for participants on a later version of the course that I had done. I was asked to work with children who used communication aids in Oxford. People started to see me as a kind of role model for young people who use AAC. I got great satisfaction from these early dance workshops, and the requests for my services grew. By word of mouth, and personal recommendation, I found myself working all over the country. Fortunately at about this time I got my own personal transport sorted out, and was able to start to travel around quite easily.
I have worked with adults and children, with, and without disabilities, all around the country. At the same time giving solo performances to music which I have written for myself, on my computer.
My dance work had now become an almost full time, voluntary job. I was getting increasing requests to give my workshops, and could ask for my expenses only, as I was afraid to lose my safety net of the state benefits which had always provided the roof over my head. After much thought, and being advised against working as self employed, I have now made up my mind to go for it, and attempt to earn my living by doing this work
Recently I acquired a Soundbeam, which has huge potential for widening the scope of my dance workshops and performances. This equipment allows music to be created by movement through the beams, and I feel that this makes my claim that "everyone can dance" a reality, not just a vain hope.
I am still in the process of learning how to use this technology, and am greatly indebted to Soundability in Bristol, for their encouragement and help. I am currently working on a performance piece to showcase my Soundbeam work, and am exploring ways to incorporate Soundbeam into my dance workshops.
