Friends Dance

 

A friend is where?

A friend is there

When needed

A friend is there

When heeded

A friend will care

When needed

A friend will care

When heeded

A friend will dare

Friends Dance

I was working in the summers from 1982 to 2006 in Newport RI as a rolfer in the Shake A Leg Program, a second-stage rehabilitation program for people, mostly young people, with spinal chord injuries. As my interest in dance progressed, I suggested adding a dance program to SAL and this dance was my first choreography of dances with people of differing movement abilities. My friend Harry Horgan a created and developed  SAL and I was part of the program from the beginning. He was the Director. I was thinking about how friends worked together when one was in a wheelchair and what were some interesting ways of helping a friend get into and out of his or her wheelchair. My thoughts materialized into this dance from 1983, as part of the closing ceremony of the second year of the SAL program. One of the SAL dancers, Jack Porter also wrote about the dance program and his talk about that is also included in the video. As the dance evolved in succeeding years, several other dancers got into performing also and a couple of these performances are also included as part of the video.

 

This dance is about friendship—how a friendship dance between men and women is different from a friendship dance between men, or a friendship dance between women. Even when they are composed of the same elements and movements. This dance is also about you do your own thing within a friendship or feel alone within a friendship and, conversely, how you can know you have friends even when you are all alone. It’s a dance about the beauty and fun of people with different limitations moving together and exceeding their limitations.