Engaged Learning Reflection-Dance Internship DANC 394

My dance internship at Misericordia required that I create choreography and teach

dance classes to residents. Misericordia is an organization that provides services for adults with
developmental disabilities. For my internship, I was interested in creating physically adaptive
dance for people with developmental disabilities and exploring what exactly physically adaptive
dance means for different populations. My internship was an extension of the work I did with my
mentors Sarah Cullen Fuller and Amy Wilkinson in creating the dance film All that combined
the efforts of the Virtual Dance Ensemble and artists with Parkinsons disease. My internship
was a further exploration into disability and dance. I also attended the conference Disability as
Spectacle at UCLA and attended dance concerts centered on disability arts such as Jessica
Martins Exploration. My internship was a culmination of projects I had begun and a way for me
to continue exploring other ways that dance serves humanity through learning about our bodies,
having faith in our abilities, and striving for justice through creating opportunities for all people to
access dance. My internship also allowed me to further my personal skills as an educator and
civic development to work towards equitable services for all.

Through my work with the creative process of All, especially being a part of the dance
classes for dance artists with Parkinsons disease, I learned that all dance, despite disability, is
adapted to the students you are teaching. Sarah Cullen Fuller made it clear that these dance
artists were not that much different to other students she taught. Fuller would create a task and
the dancers would adapt the movement according to their own needs. Fuller also emphasized
the need for dancers to author their own experience. In other words, the dancers were required
to create their own movement and take responsibility and agency for their own creative
development through improvisation techniques and performance.

During my time at Misericordia, this was one of the first elements I observed. The
residents wanted to lead and direct their own experience. This was apparent most during dance
warm ups where residents would alternate and lead the warm up according to how they wanted
it to go. However, I also noticed there was a great difference between how Fuller taught and
how the program ran at Misericordia. At Misericordia there seemed to be more structure and
less opportunities to improvise. However, I believe this also has to do with how the residents
worked best in this environment. The residents at Misericordia are resistant to change and value
routine and ritual. This truly demonstrated to me that adaptive dance depends on the needs of
the students. My experience observing the class made me ponder if this idea of adaptive dance
is truly that novice or rather is it the fact we do not see people with disabilities dancing on a
regular basis on large productions or even smaller productions and this is the reason we must
distinguish it from other types of pedagogy.
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About midway through my internship I began to lead some of the warm up and teach
choreography to the residents. Misericordias Showtimers dance troupe is based out of the
Recreation and Leisure Department and it is this group that performs at the annual Family Fest
in September. This year my supervisors chose Grease as the theme. To create choreography I
watched many videos on YouTube and made up 3 steps that we could use throughout the
piece: the cowboy step, the snaps, and the open and close. Teaching this choreography I found
value in repeating the steps and gradually making it faster so that the residents could feel
confident in their ability to complete the steps. The way I taught the choreography became more
animated with time. My goal in this was to have the residents perform while completing the
choreography. Throughout many of the sessions I realized that the residents loved performing
when there was no choreography and preferably when Katy Perry was singing, but once
choreography came into the picture there was an apparent intense focus that took away from
their personalities and performance qualities. My goal to maintain their natural performance
quality was tough to achieve. At times I would catch glimpses, but I realized that this may not
even be realized until the performance itself. While I feel that I was able to connect with the
residents, I know that I would need more time to accomplish what I wanted to get out of the
choreography. Regardless, I was happy to have worked with the residents in such a fun way. In
fact, now every time they see me now they motion one of the moves I taught them and call me
the dance lady.

While working with the residents I was not considering the social implications of creating
dance, however, after attending the Disability as Spectacle Conference at UCLA, I began to
consider things like how people with disabilities are performing every day of their lives. Their
physical or social differences can make others stare as if they were observing a performance of
some sort. The conference explored how this notion can be either exploited or used for social
change. However, I believe that my choreography was not meant to be any type of social
commentary, rather it was meant for people with disabilities to perform like any other person.
Perhaps, it was the very fact, that the adults with disabilities would be visible in a society that
many times wants to hide away people with disabilities. This allowed me to reflect that there are
only a few services that celebrate people with disabilities instead of trying to cure them or fix
them. This has allowed me to re-center my thinking around what types of services and
opportunities for performance are available for people with disabilities. For us to celebrate each
other and achieve justice for each other we must alter the visibility of marginalized groups
especially in this case those with disabilities.
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In Chicago, I attended a concert centered around disability and dance. I went to go see
Jessica Martins Exploration, where she explored how her muscular contractures and other
physical impairments led to valuable and novice movement exploration. However, her disability
was not necessarily the focus, but rather her inner narrative of being in community with others
served as the focus. Martin curated a space where the classic aesthetic of dance was
challenged by non-traditional dancers, those that were larger in size and another dancer who
had a mental disability. I found the presentation of her work in a theatre space that provides
accessible services to be one of the most valuable aspects of the performance. While I wanted
her to focus on an abstraction of the movement she presented, I still valued her choreography
especially when it centered her physicality as the technique instead of using other codified
techniques like ballet or Graham. During her production, she stated that she felt much more free
out of her wheelchair. While this may be true I wonder how she could use her wheelchair as a
tool to explore her movement. I look forward to continue to see Martin develop as an artist and
only hope that these accessible spaces continue to be available and more ubiquitous with time.

This upcoming Fall I will be studying Exercise Physiology with a focus on disability and
dance interventions to increase physical activity in children with disabilities. After this experience
I am encouraged to look critically at which services are provided and how they can be provided
to benefit the quality of life for the those with disabilities. If I have learned anything throughout
this all is that we must strive to provide equitable services for people with disabilities in order for
them to live their fullest life hopefully with the least amount of societal barriers with the aim of
removing those barriers in the future.