“Dis_Sylphide”, as a title, conjoins words “dis-abled” and “sylph(ide)” to point out that historically, as well as nowadays, disabled are present through their absence in dance, just as sylphs are - the invisible bodiless beings of air, the mythological figures in literature and iconic ballets (La Sylphide, 1832; Les Sylphides, 1909). The absence of disabled in dance points to the problem of representational structures in dance, and normative mechanisms in arts, culture and society.

“Dis_Sylphide” is a disability dance performance with six disabled artists, it will be an intervention into the current dance scene – and dance history - by its minoritarian subjects: disabled artists. 

Disabled dance artists will work together with their non-disabled colleagues on seminal choreographies from German dance history, which introduced new concepts of (dance) bodies that are still politically relevant for the marginal position of disabled people today.