Claire Cunningham is famous for dancing on crutches, but where did the idea to utilize the creative potential of crutches within dance come from?

For Claire it began when she was awarded a Creative Scotland Award in 2006, which enabled her to investigate her own movement potential. She was mentored by 
US performance artist Bill Shannon in his ground-breaking Shannon Technique: a distinctive dance form integrating the creative and functional use of crutches.

Bill Shannon is an American hip hop dancer – and crutch user too. His own site what is what and it contains masses of images, video and commentary on the full body of this work. A great starting point is Crutch, a 4 min piece on Youtube.

There is also a great review of his work, and how he came to dance, in the Pittsburgh City Paper in which he gives the fantastic line:

 ”I’m an artist trapped in a human-interest story.”

- a line that many of the artists within Push Me will connect with.

Bill’s work is very different to Claire’s – having its roots in hip hop culture rather than contemporary dance and balletic movement, but the interest in the kinetic nature of objects in space is a common theme in both their work.

One of Bill Shannon’s recent pieces, Spatial Theory, drew the following response:

“Bill Shannon’s choreography appeared to defy basic principles of balance and gravity, creating a remarkable kinetic world of its own” Jack Anderson, New York

- a response that could easily be used to describe Claire Cunningham’s work too.