I’ve never made a secret of how much I love going to concerts or the theater. I like plays, dance productions, comedians, or musical acts. I’m not ashamed of it. If I could afford it, I’d go to the theater all the time. And it doesn’t have to be a big fancy theater presenting a big fancy production either. It can be a little theater with a little production, and I’m just as happy. But I have discovered that I like mainstream theater more than things that are a bit different.

Friday night my mom and I went to the Cerritos Center for Performing Arts to see Axis Dance Company. I was thinking it would be your typical dance production. It was. And it wasn’t. I thought it would be different musical numbers with dancers showcasing their talents. I did not think it would include people in wheelchairs, or with prosthetic limbs. That part was a surprise. Now, before someone says I’m being discriminatory or mean or whatever, let me clarify. I have NO problem with differently abled people. None. I don’t feel uncomfortable around them. I don’t avoid them. I don’t think they are less of a person because they are different than I am. I just was surprised to see them in a dance company. The program called the company a "bridge between Contemporary and physically integrated dance." I’m not sure if I would have said that, but that’s how they like to describe themselves. The dancers consisted of 2 able-bodied women, 2 women in electric wheelchairs, 2 men and 1 woman in manual wheelchairs, and 1 woman with amputated fingers and legs (below the knee) who used different prosthetics throughout the performance.

It was..different. The people in the wheelchairs looked fairly graceful as they twirled around the stage. But it wasn’t synchronized dance. It was a little bit of everyone doing something different. Sometimes they did things together, sometimes it looked like a free for all. The able bodied women would spin and leap around the stage, sometimes riding on the back of a wheelchair. My favorite part was when one of the men tipped his wheelchair on the side, and one of the women spun on the wheel that was facing the ceiling. That part was acrobatic and cool. The rest of it was a little like watching an interpretive dance, and not having a clue as to what was being said. It wasn’t bad, per say, just not my cup of tea. Or maybe because I expected something else, I didn’t have time to adjust to something this new and creative. Maybe if I knew that it was going to be a mixed ability production, my expectations would have been different (not lower, just for the record). Or maybe I’m just a mainstream kind of gal.