Portuguese Paralysed Dancer Diana Niepce Shares Her Journey of Self-Recovery

How does it feel to fall from a trapeze, suffering a spinal cord injury that leaves you paralysed? For the ordinary, it’s already unimaginable; let alone for an acrobatic dancer. Yet, having lived through this experience, dancer and choreographer Diana Niepce recounts her journey of recovery in her latest solo work, The Other Side of Dance.

Niepce displays incredible courage and physicality in conquering this performance. Assisted by stage technicians, she begins by crawling on stage, determinedly using her torso to lift herself. Her arms elegantly sweep across her lower limbs. By doing Ballet Chassé with her arms, she reminds us of her legacy as a former ballerina with grace and strength. These movements are beautifully choreographed, conveying her confidence as a dancer, her struggle to regain what was lost, and some moments of woe and despair, signalled by a looping wacky soundscape indifferently mocking at her paralysis. Later, helped by the stage technicians, she rises onto a rehabilitation installation and successfully completes an aerial flip.

By falling down from trapeze, Niepce starts to understand her body anew. Unfortunately, despite her claim that she seeks to explore her body as an experiment rather than mere entertainment, her choreography ultimately feels like a simple, straightforward reenactment of her post-injury experience. For sure, what she has done with an injured body is admirable and impressive. Yet, having seen many remarkable works by disabled dancers, such as the Empower in Motion Gala, hosted by ENO at Sadler’s Wells earlier this year, I doubt that Niepce’s piece, as an experimental dance work, lacks depth. In this shallow choreography, there is little evidence of fresh reflection on her relationship with her own body.