By Abigail Brown
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| Abigail Brown: Fairy Tales |
Like lots of
little girls, I always wanted to be a ballerina. For my sixth birthday, I was
taken to see a performance of Giselle at the famous dance venue Sadler’s Wells
in London. The word ‘disability’ not yet in my vocabulary, I saw no reason why
the pirouetting figure on the stage couldn’t be me.
Born with
genetic collagen disorder osteogenesis imperfecta, also known as ‘OI’ or
brittle bones, I was an unlikely ballet student. By the age of six I had
sustained multiple broken bones, and was beginning to show the signs of
degenerative hearing loss and scoliosis.
And then I met a dance teacher who agreed to
let me join her ballet class. Thanks to her kindness and patience, I stayed for ten
years. The slow,
controlled exercise of ballet was fantastic for my health. But while my
overall mobility increased, so did my consciousness of how that mobility
looked. By my last lesson, I had learned to detest my body and felt nothing but
disgust for its crass imitation of movements, which I had once imagined dancing
with such grace.
After becoming
a full-time wheelchair user, I began to dream of dancing once more. In
2018 I signed up for a ten-week course in wheelchair ballroom dancing with
Step Change Studios. Allowing myself to dance again was painful, both physically
and emotionally. One of the ways I had learned to manage my disability was to make
it the object of my own jokes; to mock the way I looked before anyone else
could. But dance lessons asked me to take my own physicality seriously.
Admitting that I cared about how my body moved was so intensely embarrassing
that, when asked to improvise, I spent the entire lesson crying in the corner
from shame.
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| Photographer: Stephen Wright |
Our teacher at
Step Change Studios, Ivana Ostrowski, was hugely supportive. We learned different styles of ballroom dance, which she adapted for each
individual student depending on their disability. We ultimately worked out a
routine which we performed at the national Design Museum in London as part of
an event to celebrate the UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
After
the show, I was surprised to realize that something had changed: I felt proud
of our performance. I felt proud of how I moved.
Mass
media and society teaches us to equate disability with tragedy, or to view
wheelchairs as symbols of pity to which their users are ‘bound’.
Yet, in every sense, my wheelchair has become my liberation.
It allows me a
freedom of movement which my legs could never afford.
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| South Asian Kuchipudi Dance Festival |
Twenty years
after I first watched Giselle, and ten years after I thought I’d hung up my
dancing shoes for good, I was lucky enough to be invited to participate
in Step Change Studios’ professional showcase Fairy Tales, at Sadler’s Wells
itself in 2019. Being surrounded by so many professional disabled dancers was
fantastic. Here, our wheelchairs were not inconveniences to be hidden, but
tools which enabled both disabled and non-disabled dancers to move in new,
innovative, beautiful ways.
We practiced in the studios of prestigious dance
schools, wore the Swarovski-encrusted dresses as seen on BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, and shared the backstage corridors of Sadler’s Wells with professional ballerinas.
I even modeled for the show’s promotional poster! Seeing the hard
work, commitment and sincerity our choreographers and volunteers placed
on Fairy Tales, and the grace and poise of my fellow dancers, was the
permission I needed to take dancing seriously.
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| Photographer: Stephen Wright |
Recently, I was delighted to
take part in the International South Asian Kuchipudi Dance Festival in West
London, performing a Latin-Indian fusion piece, which we performed again at a glamorous
awards show in Westminster. This time, I felt no shame in explaining what I can
and can’t do, and needed no encouragement to hold my head up high.
After so
many years of despising and often neglecting my body, Step Change Studios has
helped me to finally give it the credit it deserves. My dancing might not look the way I once dreamed it would look, but it feels like pure joy.
Now I can truly say: To my six-year-old self: We made it!
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Abigail Brown learned ballet for ten years as a child,
and after transitioning to using a wheelchair full-time was keen to take
up dancing again. She joined UK-based inclusive dance company Step
Change Studios' beginner ballroom dance programme in 2018. In a short space of
time Abigail has progressed to perform alongside professional dancers. Abigail
is also an aspiring writer. You can follow Step Change Studios at:
