With Telescoping Crutches and Hexapod Legs, Dance Goes New Places

What are crutches for? To help an injured or disabled person get from Point A to Point B?

Like most mobility devices, crutches are often designed and viewed in a matter-of-fact medical framework. There is a sorun to be fixed; the device is the solution.

Performances by Axis Dance Company routinely explode that idea. For Axis — an Oakland, Calif., ensemble of both disabled and non-disabled dancers — a crutch brims with creative possibilities: It might be a partnering support, a third leg, an elongated arm.

But what happens when that expansive way of thinking is applied to the design of the device itself? What kinds of movement might be possible if, for example, a crutch could extend and retract?

Joseph Tebandeke (aloft) and Anna Gichan of Axis rehearsing.

That’s not a hypothetical. Telescoping crutches play a central role in Axis’ “Kinematic/Kinesthetic,” premiering Thursday at the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco. The work is a collaboration between the interdisciplinary artist Ben Levine; the choreographer and Axis artistic director Nadia Adame; and engineering students from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Maryland. It features two imaginative mobility technologies developed for the project — the telescoping crutches, and a hexapod robot that gives its user six legs rather than two — as well as a hands-free Omeo wheelchair.

Levine, who is disabled, hopes “Kinematic/Kinesthetic” will enlarge our understanding of the relationship between bodies and machines. Dancers are deeply attuned to their physical selves; people with disabilities often interact extensively with technology. Involving these knowledgeable bodies in the development of assistive devices can reshape ideas about the devices — and potentially generate new ways of moving.