Much of my creative process work has centered on ‘choreographic strategies'’ to move people from trauma to healing. I find the movement pathways to healing are beautiful ways to embody the human condition. In this way, choreography becomes an immediate decision of what is important and how to go about achieving it. The purpose of movement is to satisfy a need. It is intentional and never the same. One’s approach to movement can be articulated in multiple ways but always begins with making connections to our own bodies. The self-to-self relationship is then broadened out into the world. I am interested in how bodies relate to tasks, identity, history and the environment. I believe we are all living in varying states of transformation, with some needing the world to look different to accommodate and participate in daily living.

As a dance educator and an ally for disability in the arts I view the body as the center of artistic expression and social discourse. The styles, behaviors and potential of humans are most evident in dance performance where the body can confirm or challenge dominant and accepted cultural frameworks. At the intersection of perception and representation no one body avoids being sexed, gendered, raced, or oriented to health.

My research focuses on disability dance culture and investigates how difference can be a creative force to subvert representational certainties. I have grounded my research to question the presumption of beauty and aesthetics to discover how meaning, thought and language emerge from dimensions of performance.

Although I do not identify as disabled, I my research is grounded by my engagement in the Parkinson’s and physically integrated dance communities. For the past nine years I have been teaching weekly classes for those living with Parkinson’s disease as well as preteens and young adults living with mental and physical impairment. After years of recovering from injury, I found the disabled dance community reintroduced the idea of joy back into my own movement practice, allowing me to revisit my initial interest in dance.

Future research will investigate social and cultural problematic relationships on health, normality, and beauty. Who gets to dance and what a dancing body looks like is crucial in understanding operative principles that lead to disqualification and oppression. Through personal inquiry and practice I will challenge and inform perception and movement practices to give insight on how disabled and non-disabled dancers, teachers and choreographers can increase awareness of the damaging effects of corporeal hierarchy.

Curtain Call Cartography of Hope: A Journey of Change - Dancing Through Parkinson’s - Alyssa Park Photography

Straight Up Abilities at Millennium Dance LA

“Dance is the perfect platform to allow our humanity to come through. People are either inspired by me or they feel sorry for me because that’s how the media has shaped our identity, but dance can change that” (Mark Cruz)