July is Disability Pride Month in honor of the anniversary of the American with Disabilities Act of 1990. MMDG staff and dancers have culled a list of relevant performers and performances, reads and resources that inspire us. As an organization, we value accessibility and strongly believe that Dance is for Anybody.

Artists/Companies

• Alice Sheppard
• AXIS Dance Company
• Born Dancing
• Debra Magid
  • Debra is a participant in Dance for PD classes. She is a visual artist who experiments with scale and composition, joyfully exploring the intersection of the human form, color, and movement in real and abstract ways.
• Full Radius Dance
• Heidi Latsky Dance
• Jeremy Lee Stone
• Jerron Herman
  • Watch #Dancebreak: Disability Artistry with Jerron Herman and Lincoln Center
• JM Tolani
  • JM is an enthusiastic participant in our Dance for PD programs. Among his many talents, he is photographer whose work attempts to capture the humanity of people, primarily those within indigenous cultures and historically underrepresented groups, in moments of daily life.
• Kevin Gotkin
• Kinetic Light
• Marisa Hamamoto
  • Marisa is a spinal stroke survivor, speaker, ballroom dancer, changemaker, and founder of Infinite Flow, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit and professional dance company composed of dancers with and without disabilities with a mission to dismantle stereotypes and promote inclusion.
  • Watch Pliancy
  • Watch Hip Hip Chin Chin
• Mark Travis Rivera
• Pamela Quinn
  • Pam Quinn is a close collaborator with the Dance for PD team, leading weekly PD Movement Lab classes that leverage different movement modalities as strategies for navigating Parkinson’s symptoms. Through the lens of choreography she transforms theses symptoms into an artistic experience, shifting the narrative and de-stigmatizing PD for performers and viewers alike.
• Pelenakeke Brown
• Shannon Finnegan
• Simi Linton
• Susan Sills
  • Susan is a participant in Dance for PD classes. Her life-size, freestanding cutouts are an attempt at a whimsical restructuring of art history that allow for personal resonance in a contemporary world.
• Yo-Yo Lin (林友友)

Movies

• Crip Camp 
  • Currently on Netflix, a documentary about a summer camp for people with disabilities in NY and how the camp became a springboard for the Disability Rights movement and the Independent Living movement.
• Sound of Metal
  • Punk-metal drummer Ruben (Riz Ahmed) starts to loses his hearing and loses hope on his music career and life. As a recovering addict, he joins a sober house for the deaf to prevent a relapse and adjusts to his new reality.

Reads/Resources

• ADA publications, FAQ’s and videos
• Canada’s National Ballet School
  • Sharing Dance Parkinson’s is a program created by NBS.
    NBS launched a series of “Spark Talks,” which explore a depth of artistic topics, including equity, diversity, and inclusion, both in the dance world and in our communities.
• Kathleen R. Bogart – Disability Pride Month: Disability is Broader Than You Think
• MAC (Museum, Culture, and Arts Access Consortium)
  • Important resource that includes professional development, activities, programs, and information on making NYC’s cultural sector accessible to people with disabilities.
• Mark Travis Rivera- What My Disabled Body Taught Me About Belonging
• The Rolling Explorer – Everything You Need to Know About Disability Pride Month in 2021