Dance and transformation: the Adugna Community Dance Theatre, Ethiopia

Micro‐bodily mobilities: Choreographing geographies and mobilities of dance and disability

“…Essentially, this included challenging definitions of acceptable dancing bodies, but also fashioning a movement discourse that echoed certain experiences of physical (Plastow 2004).…”

“…All are orphans or former street children of Addis, and thus occupy a complex space on the margins of mainstream society. Since inception, the Potentials have used choreographies including Fragments of my Life, to expose the social construction of disability in Ethiopia, test the boundaries of the disabled body, and raise awareness about their daily experiences of socio-spatial exclusion (Plastow 2004). In the remainder of this paper, I explore how the company's socio-political agenda developed during choreographic encounters with the BalletBoyz, and how the Boyz's expectations of the disabled body were artistically subverted in Lost in Perfection.…”

A choreographic notebook: methodological developments in qualitative geographical research

“…Additionally, through an ambitious outreach programme, initiated in 2000 with 11 young disabled dancers, called the Adugna Potentials, Demissie critiques and detangles the suspicion attached to debility triggered through disability (particularly loss of limbs from poliomyelitis) and HIV-AIDS in Ethiopia 37 and more significantly re-introduces them to forms of visibility from which many are excluded. Through a series of mixed-ability performances 38 (including Talli and Lost in Perfection), the company has explored how different types of bodies can support and sustain choreographic relationships, dismantling preconceived divisions between abled and disabled bodies and confronting what Plastow 39 outlines as 'socially engrained sense of uselessness'. Accordingly, for Demissie, Adugna's mission remains one of societal development, for through the medium of dance, Demissie seeks to re-present and actively embody through repertoire his city, socially, culturally and, in light of its atypical relationship with (British and Italian) colonial powers, historically.…”