As the musical mixture of jazz and classical sounds begins, three dancers appear on stage, their arms reaching over their heads in unison before dragging their bodies across the floor. Several moments pass before it’s obvious one of the dancers has one leg, although her movements still mirror the other dancers’ perfectly.
The Joint Forces Dance Company’s DanceAbility group is premiering “Pillars of Illusion” this weekend at Lane Community College, an event the group’s director, Alito Alessi, said he hopes will destroy the audience’s personal illusions that people with disabilities can’t be dancers.
“We get ideas about certain things and we don’t leave room to think maybe things are different,” said Alessi, a recent Guggenheim Fellow who has performed in 15 countries with his dance group. “Seeing a person with a disability as a dancer can change your mind.”
DanceAbility, a dance group designed for people of all abilities, provides an opportunity for people with disabilities to express themselves through dance and movement.
“It’s not something I really thought about doing because I’m in a wheelchair,” said Johann Mueller, a Eugene resident and dancer in the group. “I didn’t really think about dancing, but this allowed me to express myself through dance.”
Mueller said bodily limitations are something everybody faces, and just because they aren’t always as visible as his, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. He said he still had some reservations before joining DanceAbility in January.
“At first, Alito says nobody is expected to do something their body can’t do, so that was reassuring,” he said. “I was thinking I’d just be in the chair the whole time, but I get to get down on the floor for the first part.”
Alessi said no matter what a dancer’s abilities are, he pushes them to challenge their perceived body limitations because they often discover they can do more than they think.
“It’s really challenging to experience what your limitations are,” he said. “The world in general perceives us in very limited ways and we tend to do that to ourselves as well.”
Alessi said professional dancers go beyond what they’ve learned in their training when dancing with DanceAbility.
“If you are a professional dancer and I ask you to dance with a woman with one leg, you are thrown into a new realm” and can learn from it, he said.
Karen Daly is a member of the group with one leg who began dancing in her 40s and loved the feeling of her body moving.
“It just really did so much for my body image,” she said, remembering performing her first solo in Zürich, Switzerland.
“This woman told me I had a genius moment in my solo,” Daly said, who works as a nurse in Eugene.
Bjo Ashwill said she has always had natural rhythm and the elegance of a dancer while in her wheelchair.
“I love moving and this is the first place I can be equal with other dancers,” she said. “Nobody says you can’t here.”
Ashwill described the performance as unique and beautiful to watch and fun to participate in, even though pushing her body to move in ways it normally doesn’t can be challenging.
“There’s always that experience of doing something your body hasn’t before, but my main concern is rolling over somebody because there are 14 people on the stage,” Ashwill said, adding that she likes to “go fast.”
Alessi said he hopes the performance speaks to the audience in a way words can’t.
“I see it as presenting an education and evolution of movement language,” he said. “Our verbal ability to explain things has its limits but the body can express things that we might not have a language to talk about.”
For tickets to Saturday’s 2 p.m. or Sunday’s 7 p.m. performances, both at the Lane Community College Performance Hall, call (541) 870-6563 or purchase them at the door. Ticket prices are on a sliding scale from $10-$20.
Contact the people, culture and faith reporter at [email protected]