Opening Doors: Ellice Patterson (Questrom’17)

Bostonia: How did Questrom influence the foundation of Abilities Dance?

Patterson: Speaking with my classmates and running ideas back and forth was definitely formative in creating the basis of the work. The school encouraged me to go to a nonprofit incorporation workshop and to really learn and dive in. I did not know that I would pursue the nonprofit executive director/founder track; it just kind of evolved. At the time, I was consulting with different industries and learning how they operate, how to best add value, which encouraged me to research the nonprofit industry and arts sector, the disabled dance community, and ways of understanding all the elements of organization work—from incorporation to finance to fundraising. A lot of the process has just been me, learning as I went, researching and growing on my own. And then, as funds started to trickle in, I brought in more folks to work part-time, and eventually full-time. 

Bostonia: How did you assemble your team—both onstage and behind-the-scenes—in the beginning?

Patterson: I had to learn the art of putting myself out there, having conversations, and developing relationships. It was all about developing relationships in the disabled dance community across the country, reaching out to folks through social media, admiring the work that they were doing, and wanting to be a part of it. The executive staff didn’t come together until the past couple of years, and until then it was just me forming and growing and developing. I found board members through a lot of cold-calling and cold-emailing and having folks be excited about the work that we were doing. We’ve also found people through open calls for dancers, musicians, and composers. One of those composers is now our director of music and full-time director of operations, which is exciting. We now have around 20 employees.

Bostonia: Tell us about the process of creating a show and how accessibility is built into that process.

Patterson: I do all the choreography for our productions. I collaborate with either our music director, Andrew [Choe], or whoever the composer is, and I work with the dancers to create the stories and the structure. I also want to let the dancers fill out that structure as needed, not just in terms of accommodations, but also in terms of their own artistic inclinations. The performances are narrated for the vision-impaired, which is an engaging and artistic way of showing what’s happening on this stage, and it’s really an integral part of the show, because it allows for storytelling in a way that would not happen with the dance itself. I want to normalize access within productions as much as possible so that more of our community can attend. We want to create space and continue to provide options, including live streaming as an access measure, unlimited free tickets as an access measure, and other elements that make the work happen.

Bostonia: You had a show in November that was all about banned books. Do all of your performances have a social lens?

Patterson: Yes—as a multiple-marginalized person, I don’t have the luxury of just performing for performance’s sake. Everything I put out has to have a deeper push towards liberation for all. There are multiple areas where we tie intersectionality to our performances. We closed a show in April that was highlighting BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and people of color] and disabled artists and activists and linking their life stories to bills that are currently on the State House floor. As we were thinking of our concept [for Banned Ballet] for that year, the uptick in conversations around banning books was happening, and there were conversations about the impact that could be coming. We wanted to create this work now before we were confronted with the aftermath. The concept continued to evolve in a multimedia context, where there was animation, there was an actual book written and illustrated, there was the ballet itself, which featured interactive elements within the music, movement, set design, and lighting. It was a beautiful work.

Bostonia: Besides performances, what are some other ways that Abilities Dance promotes accessibility in dance?

Patterson: We have a community engagement program, where we dive deeper into some of those themes through lectures, workshops, and consulting. In addition to that, there is a team of teachers who teach different students across the Boston area. Most of those classes are free, and we fundraise for that so that there’s access to high-quality, adaptive dance education. 

Bostonia: Have you seen the conversation around accessibility evolve since you started this project?

Patterson: In Boston’s arts and culture sector, there have definitely been more conversations about access, especially among those who are more equity-focused. We are a part of that equity process and we continually have conversations with other executive directors. I’m using whatever privileges I have in these networks to encourage them to push access forward in their work, and I’m seeing the ripple effects of tangible changes. With one organization, I consulted on creating more equitable hiring practices, which led to hiring a disabled team member who’s done really great work for them. Hopefully, these things are rippling out to other sectors, as well, because that’s the whole point. We want folks to take this back to their communities and workspaces and continue in the journey toward access.