Dance and Disabled People

Community dance practitioners have actively tried to engage disabled people in their practice and there are an increasing number of disabled dancers earning a living within the profession, who were accessed through community dance activity, given that higher and further education routes were in effect closed to disabled people until recent legislation prised open the door. There are a number of professional dance companies who are either integrated (disabled and non-disabled) or are made up of dancers with specific disabilities or impairments. They have usually emerged within the wider community dance context or from the specific disability community - deaf people and their culture for example.

Given the key principle of community dance - every body can dance with intention and purpose and working on the basis of what people can do rather than what they can't - community dance offers wide ranging opportunities for disabled people to engage with dance: personal and collective expression, advocacy for disabled people in the wider community, artistic skills, active and healthy leisure activities and professional opportunities within dance and the arts.

The Foundation for Community Dance’s work around dance and disabled people started in the late 1990's. With financial support through the European Social Fund's EQUAL programme, we developed a co-mentoring programme for ten disabled and non-disabled dance practitioners - the report is available here. We continue to online produce resources to support disabled, and commission and publish articles by disabled dance artists, and about dance and disability in our magazine Animated. We also produce a free monthly e-newsletter - you can subscribe to it here.