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Canberra Today 25°/29° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Hidden corners of dance

Canberra Dance Theatre students with Liz Lea, Melissa Gryglewski left of Lea

MELISSA Gryglewski is a Canberran who fell in love with performance after participating in Hidden Corners Theatre Company, a company by and about young people who look after an immediate family member with an illness or disability.

An only child and the sole carer of her dying mother, she felt isolated, often did not go to school and was unable to establish friendships.

Hidden Corners, Canberra Youth Theatre (under Linda McHugh and Jan Wawrzynczak) and her involvement in youth advocacy activities kept Gryglewski going through periods of homelessness and depression, a recurring problem in teenage years.

Gryglewski went to Canberra College and got a UAI number. Now she’s currently studying fro a BA (Development Studies) at ANU, an experience she describes as “ very, very difficult, but rewarding…through my study I am beginning to be able to articulate how I feel about what I have learnt about disability, social exclusion, and human need.”

After spending her Saturday mornings working at Canberra Dance Theatre teaching creative movement to students with additional needs, she was inspired by one of her university teachers, Dr David Bissell, to look at sociological investigations involving performance art.

One such is Danceability Method, (www.danceability.com), which is a means of choreographing dance works bodies of all types, “disabled” and “abled” bodies dancing together on an equal footing. It means travelling overseas for a month.

“I have a bit of a fantasy of choreographing inclusive pieces all across Canberra’s responding to architecture with people who never thought they could dance educating people with their bodies how it is to live and be and share this world – especially for the Centenary… Imagine that!” she says.

Melissa Gryglewski has set up a fundraising page on pozible.com to help pay for the danceability teaching course in Bogota, Colombia in January, her passport, flights, accommodation and visas. If she does not achieve her goal, money is refunded to donors.

http://www.pozible.com.au/index.php/archive/index/4229/description/0/0

 

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Helen Musa

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