DANCERS
Judith Smith,
Artistic Director, has earned an international reputation in the field of physically integrated dance.
Upon taking over artistic leadership of AXIS in 1997, AXIS began commissioning works by some of the nation’s
best choreographers, composers and designers and launched Dance Access Community Education and Outreach Program.
Prior to becoming disabled in a car accident at age 17 Judith was a champion equestrian. She transferred her
passion for riding to dance after discovering contact improvisation in 1983. Along with several other disabled
and non-disabled dancers she founded AXIS in 1987. Judith has been featured in several award winning videos
including Dancing from the Inside Out, WNET TV’s nationally broadcast series People in Motion and
John Killacky’s Crip Shots. In 1997, she was a co-curator and Artistic Consultant for Dance Umbrella’s International
Festival of Wheelchair Dance. Judith teaches dance to youth and adults and lectures at community organizations, schools,
universities and conferences. She has been on the faculty of Florida Dance Festival and Bates Dance Festival.
In addition, she has served on numerous arts grant review panels and is on the advisory boards of The National
Art and Disability Center based at UCLA, Bates Dance Festival, Dancers’ Group and the Magee Allessee National Center
for Choreography at Florida State University. Judith received KQED’s Local Hero award in 2005 and the Artship Foundation’s
Local Hero award in 1999.
Rodney Bell
is of Maori descent from New Zealand (Aotearoa) the Ngati Maniapoto Iwi (Tribe) and a functionally diverse dancer. He is a new member to AXIS and joined in July 2007. Rodney has been dancing for 12 years and began dancing in 1995 with Touch Compass Dance Company, New Zealand’s first mixed ability dance company performing in numerous shows. Rodney also teaches mixed ability dance to those with and without disabilities and is constantly sharing his technique and knowledge through various workshops and dance intensives. He has traveled extensively with dance, traveling as far as Seattle, WA to a summer intensive in 2005 held by AXIS, and he attended the MANCC choreography process with AXIS in Florida 2007. Rodney has choreographed dance works for Touch Compass. He is also an avid wheelchair basketball player having represented NZ 1999-2006 in many national and international events and represented Auckland in the NZ Wheelchair Basketball Championships 1996-2006. Rodney also coaches a junior wheelchair basketball team. He has worked as an occupational therapy assistant, at the Otara Spinal Unit. Rodney was featured on various television programs such as 60 Minutes, Good Morning Show, Maori Television, and various disabled television programs. He has pursued acting roles in various plays and performed in a Wellington play Nga Moemoea (The Dreamers) 1997, which was spoken in Maori and toured in 1998 throughout New Zealand to various Kohanga Reo and Kura kaupapa (Maori Schools). Rodney was a member of Poutokomanawa (Maori Kapa haka group) and performed with them nationally. He shows great passion towards performing arts, Maori culture and disability culture and in his own words” It fulfills my soul.”
Lisa Bufano
is an interdisciplinary artist from Boston, Massachusetts. Her initiation into performance led to an international collaboration and support with the University of Linz in 2005. In September 2006, she was awarded the Franklin Furnace fund for performance Art for her work wearing table-leg stilts. When Boston presenter Jeremy Alliger introduced her to NY choreographer Heidi Latsky, she began new work in modern dance. In 2006-2007, Lisa performed at The Kennedy Theater in Washington D.C., The Baryshnikov Arts Center, Judson Memorial Church and Long Island University in New York, The Balancing Acts Disability Arts Festival in Calgary, and for audiences in Boston and Vienna, Austria. In May 2007, Lisa Bufano moved from the East coast to work with Axis Dance Co. Lisa was a competitive gymnast as a kid. After a bacteria infection led to the amputation of both her feet and fingers when she was 21, Lisa pursued animation and sculpture at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. After a 15-year career as primarily a visual artist, Lisa is finding dancing with Axis to be challenging and engaging work. Lisa would like to thank Peter Couture, prosthetist at Next Step O & P, for 13 years of encouragement and friendship. Next Step O & P fits Lisa's prosthetics and cheetah (running) legs.
Margaret Cromwell is originally from Oklahoma. She completed high school as well as received her BFA from North Carolina School of the Arts in modern dance performance and composition. She taught dance at a secondary school in St. Lucia, West Indies before moving to the Bay Area to earn her MFA from Mills College. Since joining Axis in 2006, she has had the opportunity to work with Margaret Jenkins, Victoria Marks, Joe Goode, Kate Weare, and other extraordinary dance artists.
Sonsherée Giles is originally from New Orleans, Louisiana and now resides in Oakland, California. She is a dancer, choreographer, teacher and costume designer. She moved to the Bay Area to attend Mills College where she received her MFA in dance performance/choreography. Since 2001, she has been collaborating with Jerry Smith. Together they combine movement, sound, video and sculpture to create performances. Before moving to the Bay Area she was teaching dance and yoga in Jacksonville, Florida in public school systems and university institutions. As a costume designer she has had the opportunity to create costumes for many extraordinary dance artists. In 2005 she joined AXIS Dance Company. She considers it a deep honor to be dancing with the company.
Bonnie Lewkowicz, a native of Detroit, began studying
ballet, tap and jazz from age 5 to age 15 when an all-terrain vehicle accident left her paralyzed.
Still having the desire and need to be physical but not thinking that dancing in a wheelchair was an
option, she explored wheelchair sports and earned a B.A. in Recreation Therapy. Through her work in
the disabled community she was exposed to contact improvisation and immediately discovered the
dormant dancer within. She is one of the founding members of AXIS Dance Company and has enjoyed the
various roles of dancer, teacher and administrator of the youth program. Her favorite is teaching
kids. Working with such notable choreographers as Bill T. Jones, Stephen Petronio, Joe Goode, Sonja
Delwade, Victoria Marks, Joanna Haigood, Margaret Jenkins and Ann Carlson has been a blessing. She
is the founder and director of Access Northern California, a non-profit organization that works to
improve access to travel and recreation. As a published travel writer she has written an accessible
trail book for the Coastal Conservancy and several articles for magazines. She lives in Berkeley, CA
with her non-dancer husband and two adorable cats. In her spare time she enjoys gardening and being
outdoors.
Alice Sheppard is a former musician and literature
professor; she grew up in England and moved to the United States in 1991. Alice came to dance late
in life; she began to explore movement in response to a dare from disabled dancer Homer Avila. She
soon discovered that dance was a passion. Alice made her professional debut in New York with
Infinity Dance Theater as a wheelchair dancer. She loves to explore a wide variety of dance forms;
she is particularly interested in work that challenges conventional understandings of the
relationship between dance and disability. She is over the moon about working with AXIS.