MIXED ABLED WORKSHOP

Pina Bausch Zentrum under construction, Bundesallee 260, 42103 Wuppertal

Free admission

Accreditation

For dancers and dance enthusiasts

Kayla Hamilton is a choreographer, educator, and cultural worker working at the intersections of disability and blackness. This class explores how disabled bodies and creativity can lead improvisation. Accessibility is not an add-on, it’s the starting point. Disabled experience is centered, showing improvisation as a practice of adapting, responding, and listening deeply.

We move away from fixed ideas of what art should be. The class is flexible, shaped by the people in it. Rest, joy, and ease are valued just as much as effort and focus. Each moment is a chance to notice, shift, and create together.

Participants guide the work, moving at the pace that feels right for their bodies. “Technique” is redefined and is not about sameness or copying, but about being present, building relationships, and responding in the moment.

Bio

Kayla Hamilton, Pina Bausch Fellow (2023), Performance maker, dancer, educator cultural consultant and artistic director from New York City. Her work has been presented at The Shed, Gibney, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, and New York Live Arts, and she has performed with Kinetic Light, Sydnie L. Mosley, Paloma McGregor, and Gesel Mason. An United States Artist Disability Futures Fellow and Bessie Award recipient, Kayla co-directs Angela’s Pulse Dancing While Black and co-facilitates How We Move, a summer intensive for disabled artists. She also directs the Access.Movement.Play Residency at Movement Research, cultivating new ways of  creating through disabled embodiment. A former public school special education teacher, Kayla brings care and rigor to her consulting work with institutions including the Mellon Foundation and New York Live Arts. Her practice spans choreography, dramaturgy, and writing verbal descriptions, pushing dance to be expansive, accessible, and just.