Mobile Bodies: Reimagining Design Through a Dance Lens

This article delves into the ways in which dance practice revises traditional approaches to assistive technology design, adding a productive dimension to current momentum in the design field at large. Based upon research with dancers who have disabilities that was approved by an Institutional Review Board, as well as practice-based research, the author examines the art of dance as a catalyst for reframing design thinking for assistive technology. Specifically, attention is drawn to the interpersonal and embodied facets of assistive technology. This research-based analysis expands the creative landscape in design thinking through attending to the disabled dancing body while carving an innovative space for dialogic intersections between the fields of dance, disability, and assistive technology design.