Viva Brighton Issue #48 February 2017

DANCE
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Candoco Dance Company
It’s about dance not disability
Often when people
see disabled people
they immediately
think of their associations
with feelings of
charity or pity. We
tackle that by having
really good dancers, and
really good choreographers,
which enables
the audience to feel
connected. People need
to realise that their expectations of dancers with
disabilities don’t have to be low. Our dancers are
skilled professionals who work hard six days a week
to make it happen.
2017 is the 25th anniversary of the Candoco
Dance Company. The founders, Celeste Dandeker-Arnold
and Adam Benjamin, both of whom
were professional dancers, first set up a workshop in
a hospital for people with spinal injuries to explore
the possibilities of dance for disabled people. Celeste
had suffered a spinal injury during her career,
found herself in a wheelchair, and thought life as a
dancer was over. So the workshop, which took place
a few years after her injury, was about finding out
how she felt about moving in her wheelchair, and
what dance now meant to her.
From those first workshops there was a core
of 12-15 people who stayed with it. They were
invited to dance at the Southbank Centre, and
following that it solidified into being more of a
company. Adam was choreographing Celeste and
other dancers, and they received funding from the
Arts Council. The BBC then commissioned a film,
which was picked up by television networks across
the world, boosting interest on a global scale. There
was excitement about
this different type of
expression - dancers in
wheelchairs, dancers
without legs, dancers
with legs - a mixture
of people, who worked
together and created
new ways of moving
together.
We’ll be performing
two pieces. Beheld, by
Alexander Whitley, is highly emotive, driving and
dynamic. The moves are virtuosic, exciting and
fast. The dancers move intricately together while
also working with large swathes of fabric. Alex
was interested in putting something between the
dancers that they have to collaborate to work with;
that binds them together and makes them work as a
group on a common effort, as well as individually.
Choreographer Hetain Patel often works with
visual identity - what are we seeing? What do
we think we are seeing? And how are we relating
to that? So, in Let’s Talk About Dis, yes, I might
see someone in a wheelchair, and I might have an
expectation of what I think that is, but what we’re
talking about is language [as in speech, sign language
and movement], different understandings of
language, misunderstandings, and using humour as
a tool to disarm us. He makes us aware of what we
thought when we first saw someone. It makes the
audience truly reflect and think hard. As told to Julia
Zaltzman by Stine Nilsen, co-artistic director
Brighton Dome, Friday 17th, 7.30pm. This performance
will be audio described, and uses integrated
British Sign Language for artistic purposes, plus
there will be a Touch Tour at 5.45pm
Photo by Amanda Thomas
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