Home pageSkip to navigationSkip to main contentSite mapSite accessibility information
 

AXIS IN THE NEWS

Dance Magazine recently published their "80th Anniversary issue", which included a retrospective of dance over the past 80 years and a look ahead to dance in the future. In response to the omission of Physically Integrated Dance in this issue, AXIS wrote the editor the following letter:

September 4, 2007

AXIS Dance Company recently received the latest issue of Dance Magazine, the “80th Anniversary Issue Dance On. Celebrating the Past, Present, and Future.” Although we appreciate coverage of Physically Integrated Dance in past issues of Dance Magazine, we were very disappointed that this particular issue did not make any mention of it.  The scope and diversity of forms integrated dance incorporates represent the range of dance—ballet, hip-hop, contact improv, contemporary, ballroom and traditional folk dance to name a few. The emergence of integrated dance internationally in the 80’s has an historical context in dance evolution as well as a societal context—just as all forms of dance do. 

We believe the exclusion of integrated dance not only does a disservice to the integrated dance community, which is growing steadily each year, but it also does a disservice to your readership. By omitting integrated dance in your 80-year retrospective, Dance Magazine is giving its readership an incomplete picture of what has been accomplished.  Mention of integrated dance in the section about where dance is going in the future would have also been appropriate. We believe it is time for integrated dance, a dance form that has been practiced and celebrated for over 30 years, to take its rightful place in all discourse regarding the history of dance.  For a respected magazine like Dance Magazine to leave it out of this retrospective is a regretful sign that our struggle to be recognized as a valid art form still continues.

In addition to AXIS, there are several companies worldwide who are practicing this form of dance on a professional level.   Choreographers like Liz Lerman, Victoria Marks and Jess Curtis have made the inclusion of people with disabilities in their work a regular practice. There are universities that are taking notice and some are developing integrated dance studies programs. As far as AXIS’ success goes, we’ve received grants from the NEA for the past 16 years and from the National Dance Project for 3 different projects.  We tour and perform nationally at some of the most prestigious performing arts centers in the US. Two of AXIS’ disabled dancers performed with Baryshnikov at the Kennedy Center in 2002. We’ve been Artists in Residence at Bates Dance Festival and Florida Dance Festival. And most recently, we were selected as the company in residence at the Maggie Alessee National Center for Choreography in Tallahassee, FL. AXIS is certainly proud of how far our company has come and we celebrate in the successes of all the other great integrated work that is burgeoning in the U.S and abroad.

We are aware Dance Magazine had a lot of dance history to consider when compiling this 80th year anniversary issue and understand that some things most likely had to be excluded. However, the inclusion of people with disabilities in an art form that has historically been codified to only include able-bodied people, we feel is a significant enough happening over the past 80 years in dance to merit historical mention.

AXIS appreciates Dance Magazine as a respected resource for the national dance community. We have always been grateful of your coverage of integrated dance in the past. We thank you for giving us the opportunity to voice our opinion.

Sincerely,

Judith Smith, Artistic Director
Mollie McFarland, Managing Director

 

 
Home | About Us | Performances | Education | Support | Contact Us