Shifting the Lens Through Universal Design Learning:
By Jaylen De’ Angelo Clay, Master’s in Fine Arts student in Dance at the University of Illinois.
Jaylen is a 2019–2020 Publicly Active Graduate Education (PAGE) Fellow.
Having a disability is “supposed” to label and hinder me from the average human. Being born deaf and understanding how the loss of one sense affects the sum of the whole, has a profound effect on my visions and research as an artist. Imagining what it means to succeed or fail in public scholarship in this way, for me means to learn, explore and grow within unconventional means to further dance. As a dance artist I am currently inspired by my experiences addressing disability, trauma and innovation, in relationship to exploring dance through Universal Design Learning (UDL) strategies. For me this idea of using UDL bridges the gap of allowing dance to be accessed through many unconventional measures, cultivating room from inclusion and innovation in academia. For me, living in a world where dance can be accessed through communities that are shared with people who are eager to feel, learn, move, breathe in the spirit of dance “warms my heart”.
Living with a disability is hard. I am constantly triggered from experienced trauma from my past, present and assumed future. This is something I am still healing from as I continue to live my life. I ask myself how am I continuing to “cope” with this identity as a disabled citizen? What constitutes the “right” or “wrong” way to learn, to live….to dance? This is where I am stuck.
Re — imagining how dance can be accessed through UDL strategies as a source for healing the “dancing body” allows me to explore my interest in disability and trauma, questioning the idea of how these topics can transcend metaphorically through dance as a way to heal the body addressing society. My public scholarship as a PAGE fellow is challenged by this idea of resistance. I share resistance with how I chose to interact & place myself in the world as someone living with a disability. Re-imaging dance as way to speak metaphorically to address society is one solution out of many that I am choosing as a way to “cope” with my disability. Acknowledging the “obstacle” I am faced with makes me understand that I must continue to try to “cope” with the labeled identity as a disabled citizen, so that other generations after me, and the one’s before me realize there’s hope for innovating more ways for disability to be re-imagined to access life through multiple lens.
