Dance within Diversity

An Art for Rethinking Community Integration and Promoting Social Equity

Abstract

This article analyzes experiences with dance that promote greater access for people with disabilities, to challenge established notions about what dance as an art form should be, which seek to designate who can and cannot dance; dismantling hierarchies regarding the dancing potential of bodies/existences; and arguing that art can be a vehicle for the social integration of diversity. The text comes from an excerpt from our doctoral thesis on the dance and education practice of artist Anamaria Fernandes Viana; on the principles and practice of the DanceAbility methodology; on the notion of universal design set out in the Brazilian Law on the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities; on the concept of aesthetic accessibility by Camila Araújo Alves and Márcia Moraes; and on the critical reflections of artist Estela Lapponi on the notion of inclusion. The cartographic methodology focuses on processuality and intervention-based research, in which the author's experience forms part of the research. The methodology also makes use of narrative analysis. We conclude that by focusing on the integration of the diversity of bodies-minds through the application of universal design, as well as on the potential that diversity provides to creative processes, the arts promote ways of imagining how we can rethink community integration to promote greater social equity.