RACHEL:dancers is a multi-medium, multi-modal, multi-sensory performance company making dance about the little things. RACHEL:dancers is committed to advancing a disability aesthetic in contemporary concert dance, and exploring ways to cultivate access for visually impaired audiences and artists through an experimental access-based creative process. A RACHEL:dancers work is a warm hug, a compliment from a stranger, a hot cup of coffee on a chilly morning. We are inspired by the things that make us human: intimacy and points-of-connection. Works are created through a collaborative process with a rotating group of multidisciplinary artists.
RACHEL:dancers is directed by Rachel DeForrest Repinz, MFA, a visually impaired multidisciplinary artist-scholar based in NYC. Currently a Ph.D. in Dance candidate at Texas Woman’s University, Repinz builds performance worlds that advance the disability aesthetic and uplift accessibility and the Disabled bodymind as creative praxis. Repinz has been awarded as a Dance/NYC ‘Disability. Dance. Artistry.’ Dance and Social Justice Fellow, and serves as the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO)’s Advisor of Dance and Disability. Her work has been presented internationally at venues including Dixon Place, La MaMa ETC, the Decolonizing Bodies: Engaging Performance conference at UWI Barbados, and more.
