A personal Reflection: What Jolt means to me

I first joined Jolt in 2004, and it has made a huge impression on my life. I began first just attending the classes and quickly found myself in my first show. I then supported an individual dancer at the Monday night class and now I am an assistant tutor for Jolt- Dunedin. Jolt has become an extended family and has challenged my view of disability and it has shown me the beauty of dance. I still struggle with calling myself a "dancer" but I will happily call myself a Jolt dancer. Jolt has provided me with the opportunity to explore my own dance abilities and has given me a way to extend my performance skills. But Jolt is so much more than just going on stage, in Jolt you are not just one dancer on the stage, you are just one part of a support net that holds all the dancers together. The dancers, families and leaders of Jolt have an amazing ability to embrace and support each other; both within the classes and shows and outside of them. Jolt continually challenges me. As a tutor my challenge is to encourage the dancers to extend beyond their current movements and bring out their beauty, strengths, individuality and showcase them to the world. Dance is such a unique medium in which language and physical restrictions are not boundaries. Jolt means so much to me and I don't have a disability. I love Jolt because of the philosophy of inclusion. I love that the group is about embracing what a person does have. It is not a group of people with disabilities, it is a group of people who have different abilities to each other and to other dance groups