Australia
Arts Access Australia: – (Sydney) was formed in 1992. From the time it was formed until very recently, Arts Access Australia was named DADAA. Arts Access Australia is a membership based service organization that works with government agencies, arts organizations and disability organizations on arts access issues.
Arts In Action: – (Adelaide) is the peak disability organization for arts and disability in South Australia. AIA promotes access and participation in the arts by all people with disabilities and recognizes that the arts have become the language of disability culture. Several community dance events are sponsored annually, and the High Beam Festival, a biennial international arts festival showcasing contemporary works influenced or inspired by experience of disability.
The Australian Dance Council: – (BRADDON) A.K.A. Ausdance, is Australia’s professional dance advocacy organization for dancers, choreographers, directors and educators, and provides a dance information network through services based in national, state and territory offices. Their mission is to be a national voice and provide leadership for dance in Australia.
Restless Dance Company: – (Adelaide) is one of Australia’s leading youth dance companies, working with people with and without intellectual disabilities to create dance and run workshop programs driven by the participants with a disability.
Austria
Bilderwerfer: – (Vienna) Since 1994, actors with different abilities work on an artistic combination of New Dance, Contact Improvisation, acting techniques and video. Bilderwerfer produces by means of performances, installations, improvisations, happenings and workshops.
Canada
Corpuscle Danse: – (Montréal) : In French only.
Germany
DIN A 13 Tanzcompany: – (Cologne) In German only.
The Rolling Dancers: – (Osterhofen) In German only.
Netherlands
Sign Dance Collective: – (Amsterdam) receives funding from the Foundation For The Arts in Holland. Its U.K base is at Penn School in The Chilterns, Buckinghamshire, where the artists work in residence with the young people and with local artists and Arts organizations such as Bucks Dance.
New Zealand
(Auckland) Touch Compass Dance Trust is a mixed ability dance organization, established in 1997, that combines dancers of all abilities. The Touch Compass point of difference is the aerial dance performances and flying dance programs they run. They have performed in New Zealand and at the High Beam Arts
Festival in Adelaide in 1998 and the Harbor of Life Arts Festival for
the Paralympic Games in Sydney 2000.
Norway
Inclusive Dance Company:
(Trondheim) seeks to bring about dance as an aesthetic and whole
experience. The first performance set up by the company was "On Feet, on wheels". The performance was shown in Olavshallen in Trondheim 1st and 2nd April 2001 and in Wasa Teater in Vasa, Finland 10th April 2001. The performance was chorographed by Tone Pernille Østern on the dancers
Arnhild Staal Pettersen, Carl Manngård, Marit Lauptstad Solberg and Pia Immerstein Larsen.
U.K.
Amici Dance Theatre Company: (London) AMICI Dance Theatre Company is a professional dance theatre company integrating able-bodied and disabled artists. AMICI has about thirty-five company members: ages 25-45, of varying race and gender,
and ten have a variety of developmental disabilities, including Autism. Two of the disabled artists have choreographed for the company. AMICI gives workshops, residencies and performances, usually creating a new production each year.
Anjali Dance Company: (Banbury) whose name means ‘joining of hands,’ was formed in 1993 as a follow-up to a series of integrated workshops. The current members of Anjali Dance Company are all people who have learning disabilities.
Blue Eyed Soul:
(Shrewsbury) Blue Eyed Soul is the West Midlands leading inclusive community Dance Company and has enjoyed critical acclaim for performances throughout the UK. Blue Eyed Soul’s training program includes company apprenticeships, performance projects and fortnightly open workshops.
CandoCo Dance Compay: (London) CandoCo was funded in 1991 by Celeste Dandeker and Adam Benjamin. The company tours throughout the UK and abroad with a newprogram of works every 18 months. Celeste invites choreographers to devise work with the company. The dancers also lead an extensive education program which include choreographic residencies, residential summer schools, specialist training for teachers, a youth program, as
well as open workshops aimed at everyone who wants to experience integrated dance.
Common Ground Sign Dance Theatre: (Liverpool) Sign Dance Theatre, was created in 1986 with the formation of Common Ground Sign Dance Theatre. Inspired by a vision of integration between Deaf and hearing cultures, it uses visual language, the basis of Deaf culture, and fuses that with expressive dance and live music.
DanceFX: (Cheshire) An inclusive contemporary dance company where young dancers with and without disabilities work with each other and in the community to dance away differences and give disabled dancers career opportunities in dance work.
Foundation for Community Dance: (Leicester) The Foundation for Community Dance is the national development agency for community dance in the UK. It works for the development of community dance, and for greater access to high quality
community dance for all.
Green Candle Dance Company: (London) Green Candle Dance Company is concerned with bringing dance to all sections of the community, particularly those who have least access to it. It was founded in 1987 by Fergus Early, one of Great Britain’s most accomplished dance artists and most effective dance activists. The company often features dancers with varying physical abilities, of
different ages, or from different cultural backgrounds in its work.
Early draws from a wide range of sources – various folk dance
traditions, drama, music, as well as modern dance vocabularies – in an effort to render the works more accessible to a wider dance audience.
Magpie Dance: (Bromley) often collaborating with professional dancers, have given a variety of performances at many prestigious venues. The Dancers have also given street performances in Bromley High Street and in the ‘Streets of Brighton Showcase’ as well as in many school halls across London and the South East as part of educational residencies.
Stopgap: (Surrey) works hard to raise the profile of integrated dance within the community, providing dance opportunities for people who would not easily find access to dance. One of their primary objectives is to contribute to the debate of valuing individuals for their skills and abilities and challenge the participants and spectators preconceptions. Their experienced workshop leaders have taught dance to a broad cross section of the community.
Touchdown Dance: (Manchester) currently has three visually impaired and three sighted dancers. Their specialty is the use of touch as a mirror in the learning process and the evocation of touch as a language of communication.
U.S.A
Axis Dance Company: (California) Since 1987, AXIS has performed in theaters and dance spaces at its home base in Oakland, California, on tour throughout the U.S. as well as in Germany and Siberia—dancers with and without disabilities.
Bethune Theatredanse/Dance Outreach: (California) Founded in 1979, Bethune Theatredanse is a dance performance company that blends elements of dance, special effects, fine art, music and video to create a unique theatrical experience. Stories from film, TV, artworks and literature are adapted from the fusion of ballet and modern dance. Dance outreach is a training and performance program in movement and dance for individuals with and disabilities.
Dancing Wheels: (Ohio) is a professional modern dance company comprised of dancers with (using a wheelchair for movement) and without disabilities. Dancing Wheels developed a strong relationship with the Cleveland Ballet, and in 1990, Cleveland Ballet Dancing Wheels was formed.
Def Dance Jam Workshop: (New York) is an inter-generational company composed of deaf, hearing and autistic dancers committed to strengthening the relationship between the “differently able” and “traditionally able” communities combining dance poetry, song, storytelling and American Sign Language in its original work, DDJW seeks to inspire, edify and empower audiences, fostering inclusiveness in the arts where exclusiveness is often perceived.
Full Radius Dance: (Georgia) A modern dance company that challenges traditional gender portrayals in mature, choreographically complex works that celebrate technique and
physicality. “Full Radius Dance’s focus is on skill and artistry. That some of the dancers use wheelchairs is secondary. The wheelchair may lend additional movement possibilities to the choreography, but is not the focal point of the work. The goal is to neither promote nor diminish the significance of the wheelchair itself, but to focus the attention of the audience on the dance.
The Gallaudet Dancers: (Washington D.C.) are comprised of undergraduate or graduate students at Gallaudet University, the world’s only accredited liberal arts university for deaf and hard of hearing students.
Infinity Dance Theater: (New York) Infinity has developed a curriculum for teaching wheelchair dance technique which is deeply rooted in the principles of Classical Ballet and Modern Dance. The company includes dancers with and without
disabilities, as well as dancers beyond the age traditionally
associated with performing. Infinity Dance Theater is committed to
professional artistic excellence through mainstream public concerts, lecture demonstrations, and inclusive dance classes.
Inflight Dance Company: (San Antonio) was founded eight years ago by artistic director Paula Gorman and has performed throughout Texas and nationally. The Company was featured on ESPN and The Hallmark Television Channels promoting the
importance of this new dance art form.
Joint Forces & the DanceAbility Project: (Oregon) encourages the evolution & performance of dance & to cultivate a "common ground" that allows all individuals to develop
creatively. DanceAbility helps eliminate the prejudice that inhibits
artistic & cultural diversity through performance, communication& education.
Paradox Dance: (California) Paradox Dance explores the mind/body relationship, special movement, architecture, time and the perception of the audience.
RHYTHMS OF HOPE DANCE COMPANY: (Virginia) was established in 1997 by the NATIONAL REHABILITATION & REDISCOVERY FOUNDATION President, Marianne Talbot, to provide persons
with brain injuries and other neurological disabilities the freedom of expression through movement. The company is composed of persons with disabilities ages 21 – 58. The dances tell the stories of life’s struggles, and the growth and rediscovery process that takes place over time.
Spitzer Dance Company: (Georgia) was founded in 1992 on the beliefs that dance as an art form and means of expression should be available to people of all abilities and that it enables a desire to dance to become reality. Along with performances SDC brings residencies, workshops, and lecture/demonstrations to the public. Alex Spitzer, the artistic director, received his B.A. degree in Dance from Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas, and holds the distinction of being the first Dancer in a wheelchair to receive a four year degree in Dance in the United States. Spitzer is the only one of his eleven dancers to have a disability.
Tokounou Dance Company: (New York) The Call to sing and dance first came to Sidiki Conde in a dream he had after he lost the use of his legs when he was fourteen. Conde founded Message de Espior (The Message of Hope) a music and dance ensemble in 1986 with other artists with disablities he met in Conakry, the capital city of Guinea. Conde has performed with a number of premier West African music and dance ensembles including the prestigious Les Merveilles de Guinea, which he joined in 1987. In 1988 Conde came to America and founded Tokounou the next year. Conde has
worked extensively with children and adults of all abilites giving
performances while teaching African dance and music in schools,
hospitals and universities.
Other Mix-Ability Links
Ballet and Autism: is a discussion thread from CriticalDance.com on teaching ballet to autistic students—totally devoid of professional references to Spectrum dancers, nevertheless, an interesting read.
Ballet and the Autistic Student: “Last fall I was a new ballet teacher and found out that I had an autistic student in my class. Needless to say, I was a bit nervous, but readers on CriticalDance and my sister-in-law (who is a special ed teacher) put me at ease…”
Articles and papers: Lots of great topical articles on disability arts and culture.
Disabled Dancers Discussion Thread: (Irish) is a thread from VoyForums and covers Irish Dance.