Gesture, Dance and learning disability

This article discusses the value of gesture in dance made by people with a learning disability and the gesture of dancing made by learning disabled dancers. It critiques the political rhetoric of inclusion and posits a more generative approach to how learning disabled dancers might counter negative stereotypes by appearing in dance as dancers first and learning disabled second. The author considers how dance is a form of thought that contributes to wider contexts of performance and thinking in art and how by appearing in public dance performance, dancers mobilize and assert the material realities of enmeshed relationship with the world rather than being passive recipients of benefit.