ABSTRACT
I did not come into dance via the usual channels but was a late starter having spent my own teenage years on the sports field. I was 20 before I became interested in other approaches to movement having seen the Pilobolus dance company in the USA in 1976. In 1980 I was introduced to the Chinese art of Tai Chi Chuan and a new world of possibilities opened up that eventually led me to study dance and fine art at Middlesex University. Tai Chi Chaun is an 'internal' or 'soft' martial art that relies on sensitivity, awareness and timing rather than force. I had been teaching Tai Chi for some years when Celeste Dandeker joined one of my classes at an integrated recreation centre run by the charity ASPIRE.1 Celeste had been a professional dancer with London Contemporary Dance Theatre (LCDT), but an on-stage accident had left her with virtually no movement in her legs and severely restricted movement in her arms. Tai Chi's partnering exercises, commonly called Pushing Hands, now provided an ideal means to explore differences in physicality, in strength and range that existed between us.
