Chapter 10 - Different Abilities and the Creative Trance

Summary

Different abilities enlarge the terrain of the creative trance. By demonstrating the extended capacities of human beings, challenges widen the possibilities for everyone. Not all conditions can be “cured,” but healing is always available through self-transformation. Differently abled people experience altered states in sports competitions, the Paralympics, dance, wheelchair dance, music, science, and visual art, sometimes without limbs, vision, or hearing. They share a triumph of achievement gained through accomplishing something that was at one time thought to be impossible – perhaps even by them. There are physically integrated dance and theater companies for people of all abilities and a long lineage of blind African American music professionals. The effort to confront impediments alters the neural landscapes of their brains and empowers their creative trance. As the world champion wheelchair dancer, Piotr Iwanicki says, “When I’m on the dance floor, nothing matters at all. Dancing is all my life. It’s my passion.”