Dance and Disability Culture

I really enjoyed reading about Alice Sheppard’s work. I enjoyed learning about her transition from academia to dance and how she views dance in disability culture. My ideas are not fully formed, but here is what I took away from the readings: I thought it was interesting how she said “disability culture and aesthetics are bound up with access.” We can not separate access from disability culture as the two are intertwined. But also inclusion of aesthetics was an interesting point since she wants us to think about accessibility beyond just  accommodations that “bridges the gap between the disabled and the nondisabled worlds.” Instead, aesthetics in Sheppard’s dance may look different than traditional dance of nondisabled individuals, but it allows Sheppard to have a creative way of expressing and exploring herself. When I first read the title “I dance because I can,” I thought of one of the books I read as a child: “Giraffes can’t dance.” In this book, all the jungle animals have a jungle party and dance but they make fun of the giraffe and he feels that he dances awkwardly and clumsily. The moral of the story is that the giraffe accepts his differences, and finds his own dance rhythm. He eventually embraces his unique dancing style. I think the way Alice Sheppard believes that aesthetics is part of disability culture is illustrated in this children’s book. Creative expression such as dance should not have a “right or wrong” way since it is art. Yet, still many audience members may not appreciate art that is created by a disabled person. Recalling the childhood book also made me interested in exploring other children's books with themes of disability representation and accessibility, and perhaps adding them to our current list of literature.