00:00I'm Iona Taylor. I am a wheelchair dancer as a part of Independence.
00:04What does dance mean to me? Dance means that I can be free.
00:10I feel like when I go on that stage that there's nothing else going on in my life.
00:15I've always, always enjoyed it and it's the one thing I couldn't live without
00:20and that's why I knew I had to get back into it.
00:23And I'm so lucky I found Independence because I don't think I would have
00:27properly ever got back into dance again. Sitting in a hospital bed being told,
00:32going from a dancer at college to being told I couldn't walk again
00:37was definitely like, well I don't know what to do now, I've lost dance.
00:41But a really good way with Independence is we do online classes as well.
00:45So there's hybrid classes, some classes are online.
00:49So even if you're worried about leaving your house
00:52and you don't want to come straight into a class with all these people,
00:55you can start online or you can come in and do a taster.
01:00The reason we're inclusive is that anyone can join
01:03and we'll work a way out for you to attend that class.
01:07This festival is really important to me.
01:11It's an amazing opportunity for all the dancers and to be able to
01:16connect people around the world. So I'm doing a piece with LPM down in England
01:21and Conquer Paz in Colombia. And I mean, where do you get to collaborate with those people?
01:27Never really. And we're getting to create that this week and then perform it on Saturday.
01:32So it's really just opportunities that you don't usually get,
01:35especially people with disabilities. We don't get these opportunities.
01:39So it's really, really got to grab it.
01:41Every single person is unique and they all bring their own thing to the dance
01:47and it makes each piece just so beautiful.
01:50My overall hope as a dancer is to show that even though I have a wheelchair,
01:56I'm not restricted to it. There's a big thing about the fact that we're just stuck to our
02:02wheelchairs. So a lot of the dancers, I come out my wheelchair and I do some work on the floor
02:07and I'm not, we don't come together. We're separate things. And yes, I need it.
02:13But I think that's a big thing to show to people is that,
02:16you know, I'm not, I'm not my wheelchair. I'm an individual person.
02:20My name's Karen Anderson. I'm the founder and artistic director of Independance.
02:28Gathered Together is Independence's international
02:33inclusive dance festival and it's its fifth iteration.
02:38The festival's happening at Tramway and it happens from today,
02:42the 4th of September until the 7th of September.
02:46The festival has brought together people from across the globe actually.
02:50So there's companies from Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden,
02:57South Korea, Spain, England and Scotland. People will see a variety of contemporary dances
03:05from all the different companies, but mainly contemporary dance.
03:08But of course the main key thing is that it is, and it does involve people who dance differently,
03:15who move differently. Independence has been hosting
03:19the festival since 2014. It's a biannual festival, so it happens every two years.
03:25So it's spanned 10 years now and I think that we are proud to say that it is
03:32the only inclusive dance festival in Scotland of its kind.
03:37It is gaining recognition internationally as well, just by the types of people that are
03:43requesting that they want to come and share the platform with us and I think that's really great
03:48and I'm really proud that we are Scotland's only inclusive dance festival.
03:53We are acutely aware that our festival is being celebrated at a time when only just two weeks ago
04:03funding cuts were announced to freelance artists.
04:07That obviously does give you some intrepidation, you know, about our future as well.
04:15Independence delivers work all year round and part of those people that deliver our service
04:22are freelance artists and that's the way that we can support them,
04:26but we also need to be supported as an organisation.
04:30I feel like the festival's kind of like dropping a pebble in the ocean
04:35and that there'll be ripples and people will connect with each other and they'll make connections.
04:41I can see them going on already and we haven't even started.
04:44The South Koreans are meeting people from New Zealand in the cafe and having talks.
04:49It's always my desire that things go further than just the four days that we have,
04:55that it goes much further and much wider and that audiences get to see
04:59the wealth of beautiful work that people have produced from all over the world.
Comments