Watch: Inclusive dance fest shows how the human body can push against limits

In the process of self-discovery, there is a distinct moment in life that you arrive at when you realise you want to do something and plan to be good at it. I often wonder if we discover our limitations and capabilities before, after, or during that realisation.

This weekend, dancers from across the world gathered at the Sibikwa Arts Centre in Benoni for the Body Moves dance festival. The festival aims to give a platform for able and disabled dancers to collaborate in making art and discuss issues faced by people living with disabilities.

For these choreographers and dancers from South Africa, Uganda, Ireland, Italy and Flanders, society’s limits are limitless, and their capabilities are self-produced.

Joseph Tebandeke, a choreographer from Uganda, says dancing has become a way for him to express himself and “try and communicate to people his capabilities and how he wants to be treated: which is not a vulnerable person that cannot speak for himself.”

Tebandeke says: “The first time I fell in love with dancing, I was invited by a lady from Sweden to join her dance workshop. I didn’t think dance could be so beautiful. The lady was slowly moving around, making these beautiful turns. I remember thinking, everyone can dance.”

Nadine McKenzie, the co-founder of the inclusive dance company Unmute Dance Theatre based in Cape Town, shares a similar story. She was in her matric year when another company that does inclusive work came and did a performance at her school.

She says: “At some point during the performance, I stopped seeing his wheelchair on stage, and I just saw only a performer.”

For Nadine, this is when she realised she was also capable.

The word ‘disability’ is usually carried with a certain heaviness, marginalisation and fragility. To a certain extent, some people do not know how to have a conversation with someone living with a disability without feeling uncomfortable.

Tebandeke Joseph says: “Because of your disability, people don’t understand how to interact with you, so they fear they will insult or offend you.”

Yet it is through moments like this, when people are allowed to learn and see how capable a human body is, that their mindset shifts.

Nadine McKenzie says: “It’s quite exciting that it’s not just about staging works with only disabled people involved. It’s a platform where people of different backgrounds and abilities can be in one space, working together and be seen as equals.”

There is still much work being done globally to help inmove the conversation of inclusivity forwards. Tebandek believes, “it is when that stigma of preciousness that comes with people living with disabilities falls away that we will be able to move forward and talk to each other without fear. “

Also read: Veronica Louw on her graceful career as a ballerina