Writing

On this page you will find details of the dance book Making an Entrance, a list of published articles and the full text of five articles published in a variety of dance journals.

Making an Entrance

theory and practice for disabled and non disabled dancers

by Adam Benjamin

pub by Routledge. Includes 36 black and white photos.

The first practical introduction to teaching dance with disabled and non disabled students, written by one of the leading practitioners in the field. A thought provoking and hugely enjoyable manual, essential reading for all those addressing difference through the medium of dance

The book explores how improvisation can be better used to meet the evolving needs of dance education and includes over 50 exercises designed to stimulate and challenge students at all levels. The theoretical sections delves into the history of a 'dis-integrated' dance practice, placing it within the wider context of cultural and political change. The author also questions what is meant when we talk about 'inclusive' or 'integrated dance' - and what we might expect of it.

Includes useful information on the practicalities of setting up workshops, covering issues of class size, the safety aspects of wheelchairs and the accessibility of dance spaces. Now a set book on numerous university courses across the UK.

Reviews:

'This book revolutionizes perceptions of the dancer's body as well as dance itself'

Carrie Sandahl, Florida State University

'This is a path-breaking sourcebook and guide to the challenges and creative opportunities for integrated dance'

Carol Brown, University of Surrey

To Order:

By mail:
Taylor & Francis Customer Services,
ITPS,
Cheriton House,
North Way,
Andover,
Hampshire,
SP10 5BE

T: +44 (0)1264 343071
F: +44 (0)1264 343005
Email: book.orders@tandf.co.uk

Also available from amazon.com

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Other Publications

L'intelligence du corps

published in Japanese by:
Aichi Arts Promotions Service, March 1999.
email: eri_karatsu@aac.pref.aichi.jp web: www.aac.pref.aichi.jp
the book looks at the work of Adam Benjamin and Wolfgang Stange

The Simpson Board a choreographic tool for students with profound physical disability.

Simpson Board

Coming soon, (Chapter 10) in

An Introduction to Community Dance Practice

edited by Diane Amans Pub Palgrave Macmillan

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Published Articles

Articles in bold in the list are included on this page in full - scroll down below the list.

article title publication issue

The Contemplation of Space

[Online] http://www.londondance.com/content.asp?CategoryID=2351 [2007]

Building Dreams in Ethiopia Dance UK 49 Summer 2003

Beyond Difference　　　 THEATRE ART (Japan)　　 Vol 17 2002-2,

Adam Benjamin Sotokoto Magazine(Japan)　　 Vol12 no.42Dec 2002

An Evolution in Practice　　 Animated　　 Summer 2002

Tshwaragano Dance Theatre Journal Vol17 no.1 Spring 2001

Le droit de mouvement CRHES (France)

Collectif de Rechercher sur le Handicap et l’Education Spécialisée Spring 2000

Université Lyon 2

The Problem with Steps Animated Autumn 1999

What's the Problem? Dance Theatre Journal Spring 1999

Adam Benjamin is niet Dans no.8 (Holland) June　1998

geinteresseerd in invaliditeit

New way of Dancing Nihon Keizai National Press Japan, 　　Winter 1997

African Diaries Animated Summer 1997

Levelling the Stage Animated Spring 1997

Physical Theatre

and Physical Disability Total Theatre, Vol 8, No 4, Winter 1996/7

magazine for mime, physical theatre

& visual performance

La Compagnie CandoCo Marsyas No 39/40 Dec 1996

Revue de pedagogie musicale

et choreographique

Access to performance

Spaces Access by Design Summer 1996

The Simpson Board Animated Autumn 1995

Danse et l’integration Presented at

‘Danse et Dissidence’　　at L’Opera, Lyon, France. Nov 1995

Unfound Movement Dance Theatre Journal Summer 1995

Vol 12. no.1

Access and Excellence. Forward Move Spring 1995

Flying in the Face of. Partnerships Magazine Autumn 1994

The Issue. Dance Matters ISSN 1351-3125

In Search of Integrity. Dance News Ireland Autumn 1994, Vol 7. No. 3

Able to Dance. Animated Spring 1994

In Search of Integrity. Dance Theatre Journal Autumn 1993

Vol 10, No 4

Loosing The Ties That Bind DICE Magazine, Issue 15　April 1991

Discontinued

Dance Theatre Journal. Vol 17 No.1 Spring 2001

Tshwaragano By Adam Benjamin

From the sky, the sheer reach of the African land mass stuns the uninitiated. Approaching Johannesburg the land below reads like a cubist patchwork. It is only as you fly lower that this strange terrain reveals itself. An endless spread of tiny houses, huts and lean-tos, a humanscape of over six million people, hanging like ragged skirts around the sparkling high rises of the city.

A country that discloses itself cautiously to the outsider, South Africa is rarely what it first seems. The hills around Johannesburg are no such thing; they are unintentional and unglamorous monuments to the exploitation of those workers over the centuries who have dug into the earth and heaped up its guts in search for precious metal - a labour that has offered them little by way of reward but that has instead fueled the injustices of apartheid. Unlike virtually any other human metropolis of its size, the massive sprawl of Johannesburg has coalesced not around a coast line, river or trade route, but around gold.

I was in South Africa as part of Britain and South Africa Dancing at the invitation of Gregory Nash (then at the British Council in the UK) and Nomsa Kupi Manaka his counterpart in South Africa. My path had crossed with Nomsa's in Dublin in 1994, when I had been joint director of CandoCo. Her desire to bring integrated work to South Africa was had been made all the more personal when, some years later, one of her sons became disabled in an accident.

Nomsa and the dance consultant Jill Waterman brought together a vibrant group of thirty-four trainees from all across South Africa. Each was a leader or high achiever in some aspect of their lives, be it dance, disability awareness, sport or as teachers in the arts. This group was a mix of black, white and coloured, (1) people with and without disabilities. (2) The opening circle on the first day reminded me of the ties that are such a vital part of life in Africa. Each participant reiterated the sentiment 'I am here to learn and to take what I learn back to my community.' For the first two days the project was based entirely at the Dance Factory in Johannesburg where the trainees were introduced to the basics of integrated practice through set exercises and improvisations. Ideas and methods were introduced, usually demonstrated by my colleagues Tom Saint-Louis and Louise Katerega, before being handed over to the participants to adapt to their own bodies.

Louise and Tom also led outreach programmes in schools in and around Soweto with small groups of trainees. This was a conscious decision which meant the children in the schools were able to see black teachers delivering the subject. It also proved an essential step in the development of the trainees themselves, confirming belief in their own abilities. For the disabled dancers, it was also a stage in developing their confidence alongside their non-disabled colleagues. All of which was not without its moments of humor. As one of the trainees put it 'At first I was intimidated by all the professional dancers, but quickly I realized we were all sinking in the same boat!.' (3)

I needed little more information as to how the sessions went than the satisfied and smiling faces that rolled in off the bus after the first morning's visit. Each outreach visit was followed by feed-back and discussion, after which those who had stayed at the Dance Factory would show the work they had made that morning. These sessions were looked on not only as an opportunity to develop critical abilities but also to develop teaching and communication skills in what was a large group with diverse communication needs.

The disabled and non-disabled people we met and worked with were powerful, talented young people working with minimal resources, all eager to learn and share. The connections we made will stay with us for a life time, as will the unintentional, sharp reminders that we were in a land divided by history.

In a white neighborhood, I watched a solitary black student participating in a rhythmic gymnastics class. This talented youngster inhabited the periphery of the group, and although she received tuition from the teacher it was clear that she was an outsider, and was allowed to remain so. Despite this, here at least, I felt, one local girl was making her way on merit in this otherwise white enclave. It was only as the students left the gym that I overheard her confident American tones calling out to her father. This was not a township youngster, but one privileged by money - the new apartheid in South Africa.

A performance by a youth group from Pretoria also left a lasting impression. I am never at ease with youth dance that promotes the most technically accomplished at the cost of other students. My belief that dance has greater lessons to teach than this was certainly one of the reasons I was invited to South Africa. It is clear that offering opportunities to talented youngsters to excel is important, but when the most talented youngster is a black student placed out of sight at the back of the group, the whole ethos of privilege becomes transparent in its ugliness. Rarely has a dance performance by a professional choreographer left me with such an acrid taste in my mouth. It is of course possible that this student was simply the most recent to join the group; the desire to place blame is a strong and sometimes misleading one.

Another white teacher's work in the townships left us feeling so disturbed that we were virtually speechless by the end of class, a class that we had endorsed by our presence. My solitary applause was for the children who had performed, with gusto and spirit, material that was divisive and inappropriate on just about every level possible. (My black colleague had not been able to stay in the studio.) The question posed to me afterwards of 'whether it might be feasible to tie some arms onto one of the disabled boys so he could compete in ballroom competitions' was asked in all seriousness.

We then went to see another an ‘all-white’ integrated dance group in a leafy suburb of Johannesburg. Speechless did not sum up my feelings when we discovered her all-white dancers performed under the name of Goose Steps a title that I feel sure Mel Brooks would have been proud to have come up with.

A meeting with an English journalist living in Johannesburg, who allowed her guard dogs to prowl around us while we talked, left one of my black colleagues traumatized. Despite her repeated comments about how uncomfortable they made her, no attempt was made to remove them. Later in the safety of the car she explained that many who had grown up as students in Soweto had been savaged by dogs during the apartheid days, and as adults carry lasting fears.

The same journalist expressed surprise in a later interview when I said that I thought the workshops touched deeply on racial issues and that this was part of their power here in South Africa, even though there was no explicit mention of race during the sessions. 'Oh', she assured me, 'that's all behind us!' (3) Somewhat taken aback by this response, I asked her if she did not consider a white man in a wheelchair approaching a group of black dancers touched on issues of power, race and equality? For me it was a moment that brought so many issues into sudden and startling focus, as I watched the dancers making new and entirely spontaneous responses, something that spurred a photographer to comment: 'This is like a metaphor for the new South Africa.'

Elsewhere too the work was received with excitement and with genuine hope for the future. In The Star, a national paper, the journalist Adrienne Sichel wrote:

'Tshwaragano may not have the high profile of the Dance Theatre of Harlem and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre outreach projects. Yet in so many ways it outstrips those undeniably historic happenings. This is particularly true of its national networking reach and its already proven ability to trigger, like wildfire, a whole new era in developmental, community and professional dance.' (5)

I saw talented black African dancers brought into white schools, not to teach their own dance skills or even contemporary or creative dance, but a watered down Euro-centric dance-in-education programme - as though indigenous dance had nothing to offer.

In South Africa, black, white, Asians and coloureds continue to dance around each other in an improvisation of unrecognized slights, cautious alliances, tenderly offered guidance, unaccountable acts of forgiveness and long-awaited repatriations. The problems in the country are enough to paralyze thought, and make one question everything one sees and thinks. I know I have never felt so confused and uncertain of my position or my interpretation of events and still am wary of oversimplifying or writing about what I have experienced.

I have a growing respect for those South Africans who, conscious of the past, daily seek ways to negotiate a peaceful and respectful path through the ethical minefield they find themselves in, while others seemingly heedless of the past, step with boots on the naked feet of those around them.

At least in the studio and in our showings so far, we have let the work speak for itself and allowed those who come to see make their own interpretations. Perhaps, without proselytize or insisting, dance may provide some new visions and new possibilities in a country that, despite its complexities and overwhelming problems, seems yet to foster an undeniable optimism, joy and inspiration within its dancers(6).

Adam Benjamin is a freelance dance artist and dance writer. His book on integrated dance practice ‘Making an Entrance’ will be published by Routledge later this year.

1 The South African term for people of mixed race, still commonly used as a cultural delineation.

2 'People with disabilities' is the term preferred by those we worked with in South Africa (as opposed to the term 'disabled people' favored in the UK).

3 Anecdote from Louise Katerega.

4 A few days later the story broke in the national press of the 1998 unofficial police training video of dogs being used to savage suspected immigrants.

5 Sichel, Adrienne. The Start. 4 October 2000.

6 Adam returned in Feb 2001 to make a piece for FNB Vita Dance Umbrella 2001.

Dance Theatre Journal

Laban Centre London

Laurie Grove

London SE14 6NH

Tel: +44 (0)20 8692 4070

Fax: +44 (0)20 8694 8749

Email: I.Bramley@laban.co.uk

Excerpts from an African Diary By Adam Benjamin

In April 1997 I led the CandoCo Education Team led a one week residency in Senegal. The project was initiated by Handicap International i and supported by the Ministère de la Culture in Senegal and The British Council.

Friday. Arrival in Dakar

The poverty hits you like a punch in the face. In the darkness on our first night we head out into the streets of Dakar. During the festival that has just passed the pavement in front of the nearby mosque has become temporary home to some of the most wretched people I have ever seen. Dreadful poverty and disability that we walk past as if in shock. There seems nothing to do or say. I think Tom's big heart will break.

Sunday

We are told that the project is to take place on Isle de Goreé.....once the centre of the slave trade across the Atlantic, and very probably the site where Tom's own family were transported from four hundred years ago. It is an exciting discovery rendered somewhat daunting on our first recci visit when we have to lift Tom plus wheelchair from dock-side to boat over three feet of open water.

On Monday we will do the same but with five wheelchair users, two blind, and four deaf students.

Goreé is a small island paradise a stone's throw from the madness of Dakar. Bright painted houses, old Portuguese architecture, wandering goats, fish being cooked on open grills and everywhere people and children eager to talk.

The floors of Museé Historique where we are to work are stone or concrete of varying degrees of un-flatness. The Museé is a circular building of inter-connected rooms, each opening via a white wooden door onto the central courtyard. Above turquoise sky and drifting eagles. The building speaks dance. With no wooden floors available anywhere we agree to do a site-specific piece.

Monday

I arrange for all the students to meet on the key side in Dakar so boarding the ferry becomes part of our daily practice; teaching us more about trust than anything I can possibly organize in a studio!

We all make it safely on board along with the daily shipment of vegetables, bread and assorted hardware needed by the islanders. Thus laden we head out on the first of our many crossings to Goreé.

There is not a single smooth path or ramp on the island but we eventually all arrive at the museum. There follows an hysterical half hour of organizing who wants 'poisson' or 'viande' for lunch. It is an opportunity for me to see the difficulties that lie ahead as people try to communicate in French, English, Wolof, French sign, English sign.....and what do you mean "vegetarian!"?

"Hands up if you want meat!" Shouts our coordinator in French, by the time this has been translated and signed, half the group are voting for fish...We have arrived in Africa and I begin to understand why the first dates of the project simply passed by and that we were indeed lucky to have made it before autumn.

A great first day despite the difficulties of working in four inter-connected spaces, but with Tom, Lu, Katie and Deb all hard at it, the basics of 'leading and following' were eagerly absorbed and the afternoon sees the first duets arising from support and counter-balance work.

Tuesday

Though talented and athletic performers neither the disabled nor non-disabled students have any experience of contact work and we have to watch like hawks to make sure everything is safe. The blind students in particular have never been stretched and it is in this area that we have most to offer.

Today's session ends with groups showing traveling sections over the bumpy courtyard...only one spill! The challenge now is to bring the students own dance style into the performance.

Wednesday

On the ferry I sit with Eugène, Aida and Papa Oumar Faye and they teach me how to sign some words I have written.

"Seulement si je ne te tiens pas trop fort, tu peux retourner vers moi."

Only if I do not hold you too strongly can you come back to me

The words reflect a 'movement principle' that we have been working on but also speaks about our lives, about the fact that we will be leaving soon, about Tom and his extraordinary journey into dance and through dance to back to Africa. Later we teach it to the rest of the group. First translating into Wolof and then shaped in the hands of the two blind students Matar and Mar Sow.

The piece is taking shape. The building itself suggests so many images. In the afternoon we begin working with the idea of 'leading and following' but using our hands to cover each other's eyes. Thus linked couples emerge from the doorways into the courtyard, they appear to be charged with meaning and significance.

We discover that both Martar and Mar Sow are able to locate the doorways independent of guidance... I find myself calling to the others, to give them the time and space to make their own decisions about where and how they travel. They are both responding with a determination and resolution that is inspiring and full of dignity.

Thursday

We get Tom and his wheelchair up on the flat roof of the building for the first time. We approach the edge together until Tom gains confidence and makes his first solo traverse in his chair. It is an extraordinarily, moving moment as he passes for the first time high above the courtyard, framed by the intense blue sky.

The cassette player arrives......it's eccentricities perhaps explained by its age and by the host of tiny creature that seem to be living inside it and who wander across the dials and panels like citizens of a miniature electronic metropolis. I point out as politely as I can that the machine is not going to be usable.

Late afternoon, the piece is near completion. Sandwiches and cha are brought out and a few minutes later out come the djembes......within minutes the courtyard is alive with drumming and dancing. There is simply no barrier between the Senegalese and dance, no inhibitions to overcome, no false modesty, simply an un containable delight in life that erupts spontaneously at the slightest invitation. The disabled dancers spinning on their hands or balancing on sticks and crutches. Martar dances with white eyes open to the sky, skin glistening with sweat, arms raised, palms down, turning and stamping to the drums, dancing like and eagle.

We decide to rename our quartet Seulement si je ne te tiens pas trop fort. and to retain the signing that we had introduced for the performance here when we return to England.

Friday

Last day. Hurrying in, a student strides out purposefully in the opposite direction. It is not until several minutes later that I stop, shocked by the realisation that the confident, upright figure was Mar Sow.

In the afternoon the courtyard fills to overflowing with an estimated 150 spectators, from local shop keepers to local dignitaries. The show goes wonderfully. The mainly African crowd showers the performance with bursts of applause from beginning to end. The finale sees the courtyard alive with dancing, laughing people as the audience join in the final celebration.

Coda

Our departure is delayed by three days due to the vagaries of Air Afrique known locally as Air Peut-etre (Air Maybe.)

In between fruitless visits to the airport we schedule a rehearsal at Ecoles Nationales des Artes in Dakar for our forthcoming performance in England.

It is also a chance to say goodbye again to M Martin Lopy, the director and his excellent students. The school consists of one tiny studio with a concrete floor. In a corner I recognize a battered cassette player......it is the one I sent back, now in use again at the school.....it is their sole technical resource. A timely reminder of how much we take for granted and how far we sometimes stray from the true heart of dance. A heart that without doubt still resides in Africa.

Our thanks and love to everyone involved in the project.

This article, first published in the Summer 1997 edition of Animated magazine, is reproduced by kind permission of The Foundation for Community Dance:

LCB Depot

31 Rutland Street

Leicester

LE1 1RE

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