Breaking new ground for 30 years
Axis’ unique repertory has expanded the vision for dancers disabled and not
Since 1987, Axis has developed a unique repertory, an international profile and a clarion voice for inclusion and equality. Here are some highlights of the company’s first 30 years.
1988: Led by founding Artistic Director Thais Mazur, Axis debuts with “In This Body” and “Celebrating Life.” Invitations to perform and teach quickly follow.
1992: Axis performs “Stares, Stairs and Other Aberrations” in the original Exploratorium at the Palace of Fine Arts, highlighting accessibility issues through dance and humor.
1995: Tours to Minneapolis’ Walker Arts Center and to Novosibirsk, Russia.
2000: In her first season as artistic director, Judith Smith commissions “Fantasy in C Major” from choreographer Bill T. Jones; he later says, “They showed me what dance could be.” The season earns three Isadora Duncan Dance Awards: for Jones’ choreography, the overall program and the performance of Uli Schmitz, the first disabled dancer to receive an Izzie. To date, Axis has seven Izzies.
2003: In its version of Remy Charlip’s “Air Mail Dances,” Axis expands on the work’s variable steps — which Charlip sketched and mailed to a friend in 1971 — with wheelchairs, staircases and dancers of widely different physicalities.
To see an excerpt from “A Suite for Remy”: http://tinyurl.com/yaj5y4qe
2010: Shinichi Iova-Koga creates “Odd” as a collaboration between Axis and his San Francisco company, inkBoat. The score is composed and played live by Kronos Quartet cellist Joan Jeanrenaud and Korean pungmul drummer Dohee Lee.
To see rehearsal for “Odd”: http://tiny url.com/y6vmt8kr
2011: Axis makes national headlines when Rodney Bell and Sonsherée Giles perform on the Fox dance competition show “So You Think You Can Dance.” Viewers were astonished, and “SYTYCD” invited Axis back in 2012.
To see Axis on SYTYCD: http://tinyurl.com/ y79wmrc2
2014: Yvonne Rainer grants Axis rare approval to restage “Trio A,” her 1966 landmark of postmodernism. Marc Brew performs as a guest in Axis’ dynamic reworking, which Rainer dubs “Trio A Pressured #X.”
2016: Axis hosts the first-ever National Convening on the Future of Physically Integrated Dance in New York, bringing artists and advocates together to advance the field.
2017: Marc Brew becomes artistic director, making Axis a choreographer-led company for the first time. The company starts its next 30 years with expanded horizons for outreach, advocacy and contemporary dance on a global scale.