ShaLeigh Dance Works

08/29/2026

Our beloved Marketing Director, Jo, is navigating an unexpected housing situation while beginning graduate school in Canada and needs support securing safe housing.

Jo gives so much care, creativity, and heart to the SDW community, and we are grateful to be able to support her during this transition. If you are able, please consider contributing to her GoFundMe or sharing it with your community. Every bit of support helps. ❤️

My name is Jo Bear and I'm an incoming PhD student in Poetry at the University of New Bruns… Jo Bear needs your support for Help Jo Bear Secure Safe Housing

08/20/2026

Some works end. Some questions stay with us.

In Spring 2025, Executive Orders was created with twelve artists at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. More than a year later, I find myself returning to the questions we carried into that room.

What is love asking?
What voices are needed now?
Who do we draw inspiration from when we need endurance?
What does it mean to witness without looking away?
What does accountability ask of us?

The work became an investigation of power — not only as something we examined through performance, but as something we had to negotiate in the room.

What happens when the choreographer is not the sole holder of knowledge? When failure is met with curiosity rather than humiliation? When rigor and care are not treated as opposites? When the way we make the work becomes inseparable from what the work is trying to say?

Through movement, memory, gesture, play, disagreement, and collective authorship, we practiced those questions together.

They remain with me now:

If the structures we inherit are not the structures we have to keep, can the creative process itself become a site for imagining something different?

And perhaps most urgently—

What is love asking of us now?

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Executive Orders
Choreography by ShaLeigh Comerford in collaboration with the artists
Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Spring 2025

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📸 Photos by Paul Wegner

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[ID: Carousel of six performance photographs.

1. Twelve dancers stand against a vivid red backdrop, many with bent arms and raised fists.

2. A cluster of dancers reaches and sweeps in different directions against a glowing orange backdrop.

3. Dancers echo sweeping, upward gestures across a deep blue stage.

4. Four dancers stand facing forward, each raising one open hand against a green backdrop.

5. Dancers move low to the floor in varied curved, folded, and extended shapes against a blue-green backdrop.

6. A dancer arches upward from the floor as an ensemble moves behind her in green-blue light.]

08/18/2026

It’s not too late to join us. ✨

This Saturday, we’re opening the studio doors for the first gathering from our enVISION: Beyond Open Call—we’d love to invite you into the room.

Join us for a FREE Community ShaGa Class with ShaLeigh Dance Works: an opportunity to move together, experience the movement practice at the heart of our work, meet members of the company, and get a feel for the creative process ahead.

🗓️Saturday, August 22
2:00–3:00 PM | Community ShaGa Class

📍Reality Center | Durham, NC
Free + open to the community

Curious about working with SDW? You’re warmly invited to stay with us from 3:00–4:30 PM. We’ll share and explore some enVISION: Beyond repertory together, followed by an informal conversation about the project, our creative process, and what it might look like to work together. There will be plenty of space to move, connect, ask questions, and get to know one another.

And if something sparks while you’re there, it’s not too late to apply. We’re continuing to accept submissions to our enVISION: Beyond Open Call through August 31.

Come move. Come meet us. Come see what unfolds.

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Photo by Robin Gallant

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[ID: A diverse ensemble of eight dancers, representing different genders and skin tones, move together against a dark backdrop in flowing cream and neutral-toned costumes. Their bodies overlap and intertwine in a sculptural formation, creating a layered image of connection and collective movement.]

08/06/2026

OPEN CALL FOR DANCERS & MOVEMENT ARTISTS

✨ Applications are open through August 31, 2026.

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ShaLeigh Dance Works is seeking dancers and movement artists to join the ongoing development of enVISION: Beyond, a disability-led, multisensory dance-theatre project exploring perception, accessibility, and what becomes possible when artistic creation is shaped by diverse ways of experiencing the world.

We’re looking for movers who are curious, collaborative, and excited by contemporary performance, shared creative inquiry, and accessibility-centered artistic practice.
As part of the process, artists will participate in rehearsals, workshops, accessibility training, community engagement activities, and the collaborative development of new performance material leading toward our 2027 premiere.

At SDW, movement is more than choreography. It is a way of asking questions, building relationships, and imagining new possibilities together.

🔗Learn more and apply through the link in our bio!

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[ID: ShaLeigh Comerford leads a group of dancers in this black and white photo taken in a dance studio space. Six dancers are pictured engaging in a movement where their legs are raised behind them at a ninety degree angle while their arms extend vertically parallel to the walls. Each dancer is pictured at a different stage of this movement while ShaLeigh raises her hands mid-instruction at the front of the studio.]

07/28/2026

How can we center the lived experiences and expertise of our disabled communities year-round?

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At SDW, how we engage with each other and how we build our work is led from the ground up by the understanding that disability is a form of knowledge.

We approach access as its own artistic practice, one with a myriad of languages and possibilities. These languages and possibilities shape our aesthetics, our development process, and our workforce development strategies. When access is built into the work, conversations can go beyond “can everyone get into the room?” and extend out into “how can we remake the room?”

To celebrate Disability Pride Month, we affirm our commitment to accessibility as a mode of artistic practice. Within this practice, our creative experts are co-creators of our work—it is their knowledge that directly shapes how we approach each piece and how we engage with our broader communities.

We reject retroactive accessibility that treats access as an afterthought and we reject the idea that disabled people must be inspirational in order to have their experiences believed.

We hope you will join us in our ongoing work to build performances and communities that treat disability as a site of possibility and power. Happy Disability Pride Month from all of us at SDW!

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📸 Photo by: Slater Mapp Art

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[ID:

1: A photo of the Disability Pride flag, created by Ann Magil. The flag includes faded red, gold, white, blue, green, and black diagonal stripes.

2: A photo of the entire SDW team, including company members, creative experts, creative team members, and access collaborators.

3: White text in front of a black background reads “How can we center the lived experiences & expertise of our disabled communities year-round?” Around the top and bottom of the text are thin white semicircles with the text cutting through the space between them.]

07/16/2026

What happens when we trust lived experience as knowledge?

In our ongoing work to spotlight the people behind SDW, we are delighted to turn our attention to Ed Rizzuto, one of our incredible creative experts.

In 2017, Ed and a couple of friends organized Durham’s vibrant and thriving Vision InSights Support and Advocacy Group, a gathering of people who are blind or visually impaired. Ed’s decades of joyful rock & roll concert dancing lends itself well to his love for working and playing with SDW. Ed obtained his law degree and license in California where he practiced law until relocating in 2015.

Ed devotes significant time and energy to embracing and advocating for NCs community of people living with disabilities. He serves on the Board of Directors of the National Disability Rights Network and on Durham’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission. Ed teaches self-advocacy, Accessible Technology, and Independent Living Skills classes with NC Division of Services for the Blind.

Ed’s perspective, experience, humor, and generosity have been hugely influential in shaping SDW’s focus on centering the embodied knowledge of disabled artists, culture bearers, and community members.

We are so lucky to know you, Ed!

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📸Photos: Slater Mapp Art

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[ID:

1: Ed Rizzuto, a white man who is blind, is wearing a dark long-sleeved shirt and standing in front of SDW company member Hannah Marr, a white woman, who is fanning her hand out behind Ed’s head.

2: Ed is standing with his eyes closed and SDW company member Ciara Coleman, a Black woman, is positioned in front of him with her hand on his chest. Ed’s hand is placed over Ciara’s.

3: In this photo from the recent enVISION: Beyond Community Laboratory, Ed is seated next to fellow enVISION experts Yazmyne Jenkins and Janie Desmond, as well as SDW’s Rehearsal Director Hannah Marr. He is giving an answer to the audience.

4: White text in front of a black background reads “What happens when we trust lived experience as knowledge?” Around the top and bottom of the text are white semicircles with the text cutting through them.]

07/01/2026

What happens when we experience performance without sight? What else can become possible?

We were delighted to share space with our company members, creative experts, and broader community as we opened a window into the production process of enVISION: Beyond.

Pre-registered audience members had the opportunity to participate in a one-on-one immersive experience through “Dream Sequence,” an eight-minute multi-sensory performance piece assembled using elements from enVISION: The Next Chapter reimagined by Hannah Nicole Marr and Jessi Proctor and an audio archive designed by ShaLeigh Comerford.

Participants were also encouraged to share their experiences, which will go on to help us continue to shape the direction of enVISION: Beyond as we work to center the lived experiences and expertise of blind and low-vision, Deaf and hard of hearing, and DeafBlind community members and creative experts.

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📸Photos by: Slater Mapp Art

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[IDs:

1: A performance photo of Chemae Mebane and Jessi Proctor taken during the Community Laboratory. The motion blur of the photo makes it so that Jessi’s head appears twice—one upright and the other leaning onto Chemae’s shoulder.

2: This photo features several blindfolded audience members standing while SDW company members Ciara Coleman and Jessi Proctor move their bodies towards the floor next to them. The photo uses double exposure to show the dancers’ bodies in motion.

3: In this performance still, SDW company members Jessi Proctor and Hannah Marr are visible as blurs of movement. In the corner of the photo, there is a section of projected text that reads “At times / be fol.”

4: Six black folding chairs are positioned in groups of two in the Reality Center. In the bottom left corner, one black boot is clearly rendered while the rest of the company members’ bodies seem to float away on the wind.

5: White text in front of a black background reads “What happens when we experience performance without sight?” Around the top and bottom of the text are thin white semicircles with the text cutting through the space between them.]

06/19/2026

OPEN CALL FOR DANCERS & MOVEMENT ARTISTS

ShaLeigh Dance Works is seeking dancers and movement artists to join the ongoing development of enVISION: Beyond, a disability-led, multi-sensory dance-theatre project exploring perception, accessibility, and what becomes possible when artistic creation is shaped by diverse ways of experiencing the world.

We’re looking for movers who are curious, collaborative, and excited by contemporary performance, shared creative inquiry, and accessibility-centered artistic practice.

As part of the process, artists will participate in rehearsals, workshops, accessibility training, community engagement activities, and the collaborative development of new performance material leading toward our 2027 premiere.

At SDW, movement is more than choreography. It is a way of asking questions, building relationships, and imagining new possibilities together.

✨ Applications are open through August 31, 2026.

🔗Learn more and apply here:https://shaleighdanceworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/2026-Guest-Artist-Position-Google-Docs.pdf

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[ID: In this black and white photo, ShaLeigh Comerford leads a group of dancers in a movement sequence. The dancers are in the process of raising their arms while crossing one leg over the other. ShaLeigh is demonstrating the posture at the front of the class. The studio surrounding them has white paneled walls and four dancers are visible behind ShaLeigh.]

DisabilityArts

06/17/2026

For one afternoon, we’re asking a simple question:

👁️What if dance wasn’t designed for the eye?

Join us this Saturday, June 20 for a special Community Laboratory of enVISION: Beyond.

20 participants will experience a private, one-on-one immersive performance journey through touch, sound, movement, vibration, scent, and storytelling.

Then stay for a public work-in-progress showing and disability-led conversation.

📍 Reality Center, Durham

🎟 Limited capacity. Registration required.

🔗 Find the link & access information in our bio.

“When I sit in a crowd of people, I usually feel like I am in an ocean of crashing waves. Drowning, disoriented and very aware of loneliness. For one hour, I felt I was part of a whole, I felt one with others and felt like instead of trying so hard to understand everyone else, everyone else was understanding me. I felt more seen than I ever have in my entire life.” - enVISION audience participant.

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enVISION: Beyond by ShaLeigh Comerford has been made possible in part by the Durham Arts Council’s Annual Arts Fund, an Ella Fountain Pratt Emerging Artists Grant from the Durham Arts Council, the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, New Music USA’s Organizational Fund 2025-2026, the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural & Cultural Resources, the Triangle Community Foundation, South Arts in partnership with the NEA and the N.C. Arts Council, and the ARPA Arts, Culture & Sustainability (AC&S) Stipend Program .

📸Photo by: Slater Mapp

[ID: A violinist stands on a raised circular platform on the left of the photograph in front of four seated people wearing blindfolds. To each person’s right is a scaffolding forming a thin picture frame or window on the other side of which bodies are visible largely as motion blur. As a result of this blur, some bodies are depicted twice or barely visible at all.]

06/16/2025

We are so proud of our longtime collaborator Suvya Diaheema Carroll for courageously sharing her experience and raising her voice. Her message is a powerful call to action 💖🙏

In Suvya’s words:
“I just want y’all to take a minute and read this. Some of you know, and some of you don’t—but before you jump to conclusions, know that I was safe and well taken care of during this event. I’m sharing this because it’s time to start using your voice to advocate for what’s right and speak up for people who can’t always speak for themselves.

Right now, they’re trying to take away Medicaid and SNAP—critical support for people with disabilities and low-income families. If you have a friend or family member in that situation, please share this with them. If this bill passes, so many people are going to suffer even more than they already have.

Please read the article with an open mind and an open heart. This is something we need to talk about.”

It’s not too late! We can all still act:

1. Spread the word—share Suvya’s message far and wide.
2. Contact your senators and urge them to protect Medicaid and SNAP.

Let’s amplify voices like Suvya’s and stand together for equity, access, and care. 💪❤️



https://religionnews.com/2025/06/02/faith-leaders-healthcare-advocates-arrested-while-protesting-hop-budget-bill-in-capitol/?fbclid=IwY2xjawK9WMNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFQd2pVcFlmSjgyWnFKakxIAR7UdWcuaJf3Pw_fW-GgE_ckwtuqXgqB0ji1_D0BWfe7Spwg4gEt2ORFs9j00Q_aem_P-iK7Ds3PG2OPAG1yvg5_Q

(RNS) — Capitol police said nine people were charged with 'crowding, obstructing and incommoding.'