Abilities Dance Boston presents "Intersections V3", the third installment of a series that highlights BIPOC and disabled artists/activists past and present.
Join us for a night exploring and celebrating disability visibility in the arts. The evening will include performances from Abilities Dance Boston and SpeakEasy Stage Company’s production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Cost of Living." Tiziana Dearing, host of Radio Boston, will moderate a panel conversation about accessibility and disability advocacy in the arts with community leaders.
family friendly inspired by sweeping book bans and our right to be represented.
Are you curious to learn how one BU alum is paving the way for inclusive arts?
Get answers to these questions and more at our next Innovate@BU Alumni Disruption Series event moderated by Spencer Hart-Thompson with BU QST ‘17 alum Ellice Patterson.
“Telephone” is an activist screendance documentary celebrating emotionally rich, poetic audio description for dance, which allows blind and visually impaired people to be included fully in the joy of artistic expression.
Join us for our next upcoming show with Save the Harbor! A pop-up beach show at Tenean Beach on August 19th and Constitution Beach on the 20th.
Come to our annual in person only “Brims and Bowties” gala for celebration in our achievements this year while gearing up funds for our next whirlwind of a season.
A fully virtual dancer-led show highlighting disability justice and climate justice. Choreographers are creating their own pieces highlighting different aspects of the show’s theme of climate change, disability justice, the displacement it is causing and how it can induce anxiety but keeping in mind that it’s something we are all facing.
Join us for an evening at the intersection of movement, wellness and inclusion. Through the lens of artistic expression, a diverse roster of New England’s leading artmakers and dancers will amplify the importance of dance and movement in maintaining their own wellness as well as the power in embracing the arts as a vehicle and catalyst for creating community identity and belonging.
Come early to kick off the night with Lawrence’s Louis and Elvis for an LGBTQ inclusive bachata class. And stay with us following the conversation as the Museum’s Blue Wing turns into a celebration of the sights and sounds of the Hispanic and Latinx culture and community featuring performances and audience demonstrations from the Afro-Latin dance scene, dancing to DJ music, and more!
The City of Boston, in collaboration with the Boston Cultural Council awarded a total of $626,000 in grants to 160 arts and cultural organizations as part of this year’s Boston Cultural Council grant funding. Join us in recognizing the important contributions these organizations have made to Boston's arts sector at this year's grantee reception.
Join us for a 2nd version of our Intersections show as we continue to celebrate BIPOC and disabled artists/activists past and present and local and national at the Multicultural Arts Center.
Access Information:
ASL and CART both nights; audio descriptions both nights; venue is ADA compliant; hallway available if needed to step out for a sensory break; no flashing lights or extremely loud sounds; email abilitiesdanceboston@gmail.com for more information.
Intersections v2 Playbill
A twenty-five minute performance with a mix of verbal and physical expression from two dancers. These dancers invite the audience to make movements of their own.
Venture inside the studio of Abilities Dance Boston, a local performing company that uses dance as a tool for intersectional disability rights. Ellice Patterson, Founder and Director of Abilities Dance, will talk about the process of how Abilities works in bringing together music, movement, and more in its productions. Ellice will focus on Abilities Dance’s new production, Intersections v2, which features diverse artists within and outside of the disabled community. Intersections V2 highlights BIPOC and deaf/disabled artists and activists past and present while exploring how racial justice and disability rights advocacy interconnect. Join us for this interactive talk, and learn about Abilities Dance and the themes of Intersections V2.
You can attend this program in person in Hunneman Hall at the Brookline Village Library, or you can watch live on YouTube or Facebook via the Brookline Interactive Group or on BIG’s Community Channel, Brookline RCN/Comcast Cable Channel 3.
Ellice and Abilities Dance Boston are featured in the new book Inside Their Studio: Deaf & Disabled Artists Reshaping the Arts by the Ikouii Creative. We invite you to check out the book to learn more about Abilities Dance and about deaf and disabled artists from many communities.
This program is in partnership with the Brookline Interactive Group. This event is generously sponsored by the Brookline Commission on Disability and the Library Trustees.
ADB’s Andrew Choe and Ellice Patterson, along with Marian Taylor Brown and Allegra Fletcher invite you to traverse life across dimensions of disability, race, queerness and magic stardust with them at the CHRONIC closing celebration
Abilities Boston uses dance as a tool for intersectional disability rights by disrupting ableist beliefs and disseminating the value of inclusion through dance. Come see a performance from their repertoire followed by a Q&A.
Generously supported by the Friends of the Robbins Library and the Arlington Libraries Foundation.
In reaction to a disability movement that treated disability as a single-issue concern, in 2005, activists Patty Berne, Mia Mingus, and Stacey Milbern conceived of the term and framework of “disability justice.” The movement wanted to focus on the way that systems are interconnected and include disability issues that intersected with historically excluded groups, such as women, people of color, immigrants, and people who identify as LGBTQ+. Ellice Patterson, founder of Abilities Dance, Jorge Matos Valldejuli, professor and reference librarian at Hostos Community College, and Britney Wilson, Director of the Civil Rights and Disability Justice Clinic at New York Law School, are all engaged in disability justice work from the arts to the courtroom. Panelists will reflect on the history of disability justice as a concept, disability rights vs. disability justice, how the framework has informed their work, and how disability justice has grown and manifests today.
Abilities Dance has been commissioned by DeCordova Museum to create an evening length work based on their current exhibit “New Formations”. See more information including registration below.
NAACBoston members will discuss making their art accesible
See ADB’s repertoire of pieces performed at Studio 797 in NYC as part of our APAP showcase. NYC based dancers Caitlin, Leslie, and Jamie are highlighting the ways our artists work across the country.
See ADB among a line up of fantastic diverse genre of artists across the state to celebrate Governor Healey and Lieutenant Governor Driscoll’s inauguration!
Working with and welcoming people who don’t usually feel represented in these spaces, particularly along lines of size, race, disability, gender, or sexuality, this evening of conversation and demonstration will amplify voices across the physical fitness, dance/movement, and circus spheres, illuminating and showcasing the power and necessity of fitness for all.
This vital discussion features Johnny Blazes, teacher and multidisciplinary performer; Erin Ball, director of Kingston Circus Arts; Ellice Patterson, executive director of Abilities Dance Boston; Justice Roe Williams, founder of Queer Gym Pop Up and executive director of Fitness4AllBodies; and Roz the Diva, personal fitness trainer. They take the stage for a one-night-only celebration of inclusive self-care and empowerment.
Following the conversation, stick around for a Fitness Fair, featuring local organizations and initiatives creating and advocating for inclusive spaces in Boston.
This program is free, thanks to the generosity of the Lowell Institute.
Andrew Choe and Ellice Patterson are creating a new story for our 2022 ballet that explores themes surrounding neurodivergence, white supremacy in nonprofits, and more.
Join Ellice Patterson for a workshop integrating ballet teachings and storytelling through movement in MIT’s Welcome Center. This will include CART services.
On Sunday, October 2, New Rep presents its Sunday Celebration with The GroovaLottos’ “Bronx Jazz,” a musical conversation between father and son about hip hop, jazz and oral tradition from the souls of Black folks. This Sunday Celebration also features Abilities Dance Boston, whose vision is to “disrupt antiquated ableist beliefs and disseminate the value of inclusion through dance.”
Experience their advocacy and creative practice as they occupy the exhibit, Variance: Making, Unmaking, and Remaking Disability. Audience members slowly walk through the galleries watching the dancers move among the art. The performance continues in the auditorium followed by a conversation with the dancers.
Ellice will be performing as part of this curated outdoors performance in NYC.
Join Abilities Dance Boston as it shines in the Arboretum landscape. The trailblazing company will bring original musical scores, choreography, and audio descriptions, ASL, and CART to make the work accessible in the spirit of universal design enjoyed by all.
Ellice Patterson will utilize her adaptive ballet and modern techniques that she has developed with dancers at Abilities Dance Boston (ABD) to bring movement styles that work for various bodies. In addition, she will share some choreography from an upcoming ADB production..
This program is supported by a grant from the Brookline Commission for the Arts, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a stage agency. This program is supported by a grant from the Cambridge Arts Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a stage agency. This program is supported by a grant from the Cambridge Arts Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a stage agency. Abilities Dance is supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts through the New England Arts Resilience Fund, part of the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund, an initiative of the U.S. Regional Arts Organizations and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with major funding from the federal CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan Act from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Join Cary Library and Ellice Patterson of Abilities Dance Boston for a conversation about the field of dance from the past to the present. Ellice will share stories about identity, accessibility, inclusion, as well as the barriers that exist in expressing oneself through dance. She'll talk about the impacts of intersectionality and how to find authentic community and the encouragement to keep moving, while being labeled and categorized in so many ways.
Workshop on Adaptive Ballet/Contemporary/Modern at CultureHouse Salem’s pop up in Old Town Hall in Salem, MA:
Adapting different forms of dance into a practice that works for disabled and nondisabled bodies. In addition to various warm-ups (some deriving from ballet), they’ll also learn examples of choreography from previous / current Abilities Dance Boston performances.
