AXIS Dance Company Challenges Perceptions of Dance and Disability
Within the mirrored walls of a studio or the walls of her kitchen, Nadia Adame was always dancing. But at age 14, it was almost stripped from her when a car accident led to a spinal cord injury and partial paralysis from the waist down. The prognosis from the accident was that she would never dance again. “Dance has always been my passion. It’s what I love, it’s the language that I communicate through,” Adame said. “I didn’t want to give it up.”
Fast forward some years later, and today Adame is the Artistic Director of AXIS Dance Company – one of the nation’s most acclaimed ensembles of disabled, non-disabled, and neurodivergent dancers. Judith Smith, who co-founded AXIS in 1987, invited Adame to a workshop in 2001. That meeting led to hiring Adame. After two years as a company dancer, traveling the world, dancing and directing other projects, she returned to AXIS in 2021 under her current role.
“Dance has always been my passion. It’s what I love, it’s the language that I communicate through. I didn’t want to give it up.”
Nadia Adame
AXIS grew out of a movement class for women who use wheelchairs, taught by Thais Mazur, AXIS’ first director. Mazur brought a group together, including Smith, to create one piece for a local dance festival. The dancers soon became hooked, rehearsing regularly and building a company. “We were enthralled by the dance vocabulary that could be only created by combining dancers with and without disabilities,” Smith said via e-mail.
Top image byDoug Kaye; above image by Robert Suguitan
They found the common language of dance and movement, the same one that Adame refused to give up after her accident. “That was the beginning of breaking what dance could truly be,” Adame said.
Based in the Bay Area, in San Francisco, AXIS has now toured over 100 U.S. and international cities. They practice five days a week for nearly seven hours a day. In addition to the company, there is an outreach program aiming to provide dance education at the non-professional level.
“We were enthralled by the dance vocabulary that could be only created by combining dancers with and without disabilities.”
Judith Smith.
At AXIS, wheelchairs and canes are extensions of the body. Like all professional dancers, every part of the body is put into motion.
The company consists of seven dancers: three have physical disabilities, one is neurodivergent, one is hard of hearing/deaf and two consider themselves non-disabled. “It takes a lot of adjustment and figuring out how different bodies work together,” Adame said. “That takes time and patience from everybody: the dancers, the choreographers, the rehearsal director … everybody.” Sometimes these adjustments mean taking more breaks for the dancers’ muscles to rest. Sometimes they are more structural, like locating an accessible ramp at a performance facility. Other times, it’s navigating the needs of every person who walks through AXIS’ doors.
“People think we have the capacity to accommodate every single access,” Adame said. Although Adame wants and tries to address every need, it’s nearly impossible.
“We try to do as much as we can, to provide ASL interpretation, audio descriptions, spaces where wheelchair users and people with walking aids can access,” Adame said. “To provide a place and a space where people belong.”
Although the dance world has made progress in terms of inclusivity, Adame knows there is still a long way to go. She still constantly sees discrimination in different companies and university degree programs. “I have talked to professors at universities who have said, ‘We just aren’t prepared to teach a disabled dancer,” Adame said, emphasizing that when dance instructors are not equipped to accommodate dancers with disabilities, universities are less likely to admit them.
Left image by Doug Kaye; right image by Christopher Duggan.
“It’s sad because, without the training, they cannot be professionals,” Adame said. Proper dance education would create a pathway for disabled dancers to be in companies, competitions, and more. For Adame, the most important thing is to continue presenting the highest level of artistry possible. That’s how AXIS tackles its mission: challenging the world’s perception of dance and disability.
“Having a disability doesn’t mean that you are less of an artist,” Adame said. “Having that integration within the disabled and non-disabled dancers, it presents to the audience that both of these dancers are highly artistic and qualified to do that job.”
In July, the company performed at the distinguished Jacob’s Pillow, the first and only landmark dance institution in the U.S. They executed three pieces between the trees of the Berkshire Mountains: Desiderata by Asun Noales, Flutter by Robin Dekkers, and Historias Rotas by Nadia Adame.
“I pinch myself like, ‘Was that a dream?’” Adame said. “But no, it was just a dream come true.” Through all of the incredible moments Adame has led the company through, this felt like her biggest. “Now I can just drop my cane and go,” Adame joked. “No, I don’t want to go. Not yet. I have a lot more things I want to do.”
Homepage image by Christopher Duggan.
