Disabled dancers redefine contemporary dance

AXIS, Sonsherée Giles, Rodney Bell

AXIS Dance Company’s dancers are exceptional in more ways than most performers. Four of the company’s seven members, including artistic director Judith Smith, have physical disabilities and dance in wheelchairs. Since AXIS’s founding in 1987, its dancers have been exploding conventional notions of contemporary dance.

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Oakland dance troupe channels Haitian rhythms

At the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts in downtown Oakland, Portsha Jefferson and the Rara Tou Limen Haitian Folkloric Ensemble use dance and performance to educate the Bay Area about Haitian culture. The ensemble is organizing a fundraiser this Wednesday, October 21, at San Francisco’s Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts.

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