Sam Jacobs is an award winning Scenographer/ Choreographer/ Director/ Writer and Consultant with over 50 years experience. At 65, after becoming physically disabled, he retrained as a Choreographer. He is also Artistic Director of Found Reality Dance Theatre Company - an integrated, disabled and non-disabled performance company which specializes in training for performance by making performance.

Doing the Laban Walk or Cripping the Light Fantastic

2 March 2012

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Laban told me when I applied to train on their Masters Degree in Choreography  that my physical disability would not hamper training  because "Contemporary choreographers don't use their bodies”. During what became  an examination of  esoteric  practices in conceptual  performance making, almost all the practitioners brought in to 'show' us how they made work didn't make any Choreography anyway.  The same lecturer answered my fellow...

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Animal cruelty...

5 January 2012

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I don't even like dogs but, this December, whilst receiving mobility assistance, I witnessed a mass transportation of terrified canines at  Malaga airport, en route to the Great Brussels Dog Show which made me question what or who Dog Shows are for? Certainly not for the poor bloody dogs! The assumption of love by these dog owners for their pets was severely damaged as I witnessed hysterical screaming dogs reluctantly let out from their too small travel cage. They were and had been, shitting...

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Old Wheelchair done got me...?

28 November 2011

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I am about to fly back to Wales from Corfu alone, and have been recommended to book wheelchair assistance. Now, my relationship with the wheelchair is problematic. It was thought to be the solution to those mobility problems that we 'Crips' will insist on creating, such as my inability to climb the Laban Dance Academy floor ramps that replace stairs between studios in the radically accessible building eagerly being copied by International Architectural students who presume this will provide...

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Blog number 1

1 September 2011

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Here's to being 68, disabled, newly trained as a choreographer and about to go freelance. I had been a full time academic, teaching drama as well as running my own theatre company but I have now been compulsorily retired. I had already been told that I was a liability due to my disability and my several serious conditions. I was just past retirement age and had worked full time, with their approval, for three years past the statutory retirement age. Done a very good job to according to all...

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