CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, April 16, 2019

I Dream of Movement

Disability Arts Online: Rashmi Becker, Founder of UK-based Step Change Studios has been spending time in New York looking at international approaches to integrated and community dance. She was recently welcomed to the National Dance Institute to learn about its free dance programme DREAM, which serves dancers ages 8 to 14 with disabilities. Here she was introduced to Jocelene Ramnanan (Josie), a talented dancer and aspiring writer.

1 comment:

Simone Schneeberg said...

NDI is a great program as a whole. When I was in elementary school, NDI did a program with the 4th and 5th graders. As a 5th grader I was beginning to feel the pressures that flood middle school life, fear of being weird and different and fitting in. NDI came and I hated it. It was weird and uncomfortable. It pushed us to do things we thought were strange and stuff that made us slightly uncomfortable, but we all did it. And by the end, we all liked it. We weren't picking on each other or feeling out of place, we were working together as a class and as a team to put on what was probably a ridiculous dance. I think it's so great that this kind of welcoming energy is open to the young disabled community. To give them a chance to just openly explore themselves and their creativity without judgement is a beautiful thing. Everyone deserves confidence and joy, which from Josie's experience, the freedom and fun of NDI seems to be giving that to them.