Alito Alessi and his partner Emery Blackwell@@http://www.danceability.com/united_strengths_in_motion.php@@ took to the Gerlinger Annex stage this weekend. Partners for over 20 years, Alessi and Blackwell know their rhythms and routines as they slide through wheelchairs, walk on crutches, roll on wheels and use their bodies to create dance. The house was packed, and after the final act, there was no other sound but applause.
The performances held on Friday and Saturday night was in honor of dance troupe Joint Forces’ 25th anniversary. While Blackwell and Alessi performed two duets, the other four acts were Alessi’s choreographed pieces for faculty members, graduate and undergraduate students and members of the mixed ability community. The connective theme that Alessi’s Joint Forces performances and DanceAbility workshops emphasize is the capabilities of all people.@@http://www.danceability.com/@@
“We are all people, not disabled or abled,” Alessi said. “We are just people.”
Joint Forces was founded in 1979@@http://www.jointforcesdance.com/about.php@@ and officially introduced as a nonprofit organization in 1986. Alessi and his team created the DanceAbility method to share and teach people with mixed abilities around the world. Their first workshop had a hundred participants.
Alessi met Blackwell on a street corner about 20 years ago. Alessi asked Blackwell if he wanted to participate in a DanceAbility workshop. Blackwell declined, but it didn’t take too much time for him to come around. Now Blackwell, who has cerebral palsy, and Alessi travel to different countries around the world and perform their choreographed pieces. A huge demographic of their audience is young children. Alessi and Blackwell will perform and then dissect their performance to educate kids about disabilities.
The University’s Dance Production I class conducted the weekend’s performances. The students in the class spend the first half of the term learning the technical skills behind producing a concert, and in the second half, they put their skills into action.
Shannon Mockli,@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=staff&d=person&b=name&s=Shannon+Mockli@@ an assistant professor in the University’s Dance Department, did a performance originally choreographed by Alessi and his cofounding partner Karen Nelson.@@http://www.danceability.com/3days_Paxton.php@@ Mockli and fellow professor Brad Garner@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=staff&d=person&b=name&s=Brad+Garner@@ executed Alessi’s “Hoop Dance,” which required strength and trust as the pair jumped and twisted through each other’s arms in a shape of a hoop.
Roughly a year and half ago, Mockli underwent open heart surgery. Even though Mockli’s disability is invisible to the eye, Mockli, like the mixed ability performers, found herself pushing her own abilities and limits throughout the physically demanding dance.
“It is fascinating to look at ability,” Mockli said, “and to look at how different bodies carry different expressions and how various bodies come together in support of one another.”
The first piece performed incorporated mixed ability community members who recently participated in a local DanceAbility workshop with Blackwell and Alessi. Teachers and students joined the stage with the participants as they created movement encompassing time and space @@far out, man@@in Alessi’s choreography. As Alessi explained, “Every person can make every moment just like every person can experience every emotions.”
When the participants froze at the end of piece, cheers brought smiles to all the dancer’s faces, proof that the mission of Joint Forces and DanceAbility continues to be effective a quarter of a century later.
Joint Forces, DanceAbility performance showcase mixed ability dance
Daily Emerald
November 13, 2011
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