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Don't look before you leap, it's more thrilling

Face your fears when you watch Edge Roaming. PHOTO: NOAH BUCHAN, TAIPEI TIMES

Claire Cunningham, a physically disabled dancer from the UK, expertly flips, twirls and delicately moves around using a harness, which illustrates that disabilities are no barrier to sublime movement.

The contemporary dance and aerial performance by UK-based Blue Eyed Soul Dance Company — of which Cunningham is a member — called Don't Touch Me kicked off the Sixth Sense in Performing Arts Festival currently running at the Guling Street Theater until Sunday.

"We don't want critics to approach our work any differently than they would other kinds of dance or theater," said Rachael Freeman, Blue Eyed Soul Dance Company's founder and artistic director. "We want them to be objective."

Freeman's comments illustrate a common problem disabled actors and dancers encounter when taking to the stage; traditional theater and dance communities and critics still find it difficult to judge disabled performers on the merits of the pieces presented.

Choreographer Lee Hsiao-lei (李曉蕾) attempts to move beyond disability with Edge Roaming, a theatrical and dance piece that starts tomorrow.

Performance notes What: Edge Roaming (邊綠-遨遊) Where: Guling St Theater (牯嶺街小劇場), 2, Ln 5, Guling St, Taipei (台北市牯嶺街5巷2號) When: Tomorrow at 2:30pm and 7:30pm, and Sunday at 2:30pm Tickets: NT$300 available through NTCH ticket outlets or at www.artstickets.com.tw

With music, dialogue and dance, the show brings together two professional and seven legally blind amateur dancers, and is more like contemporary drama than dance. Lee worked with the performers before at workshops and the collaborative effort was commissioned by Guling Street Theater.

Edge Roaming is divided into three sections, each of which represents a journey. When seen as a whole the piece conveys a message of realizing and overcoming fear, a process through which individuals grow stronger.

As the title suggests, the travelers are moving on the margins of society, but through the action on the stage, the characters are able to appreciate their own unique role in society and thereby transcend the boundaries they face.

"This is inclusive theater," Lee said after rehearsals for the show earlier in the week. "I don't want people to think that because they are disabled they should be felt sorry for."
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