A dancing duo have shown incredible strength and resilience during this beautiful dance using wheelchairs.
Marisa Hamamoto and her dance partner Piotr Iwanicki, demonstrate their grace and talent during a performance of the dance with extreme lifts throughout, filmed early February, in Los Angeles, California.
Marisa is the founder of Infinite Flow – an inclusive dance company, was inspired create a dance company that involved dancers with and without disabilities because she was temporarily paralyzed from the neck down with a rare stroke.
Piotr was born with spina bifida, a birth defect in which a developing baby’s spinal cord fails to develop properly, and is a world champion wheelchair ballroom dancer.
Marisa Hamamoto (left) founded Infinite Flow, an inclusive dance company in Los Angeles, California
Hamamoto released a video with her dance partner, Piotr Iwanicki (right), at the beginning of February. Piotr was born with spina bifida and is bound to a wheelchair
Marisa said: ‘While I was a senior at university, I suddenly became paralyzed from the neck down during a contemporary dance class.
‘The following day I was diagnosed with a rare stroke called spinal cord infarction and was told by the doctor that I may never walk or dance again.
‘I regained most of my mobility fairly quickly and walked out of the hospital after two months.’
Infinite Flow, which was founded in 2015, is America’s first professional wheelchair ballroom dance company and uses dance as a vehicle to mainstream inclusion and eliminate the stigma around disability.
This dance is an example of how Infinite Flow ‘erases the boundaries between dancers with and without disabilities’ and shows how through extensive development of trust, they’re able to push the boundaries.
Marisa said: ‘I have a vision to build a world class inclusive dance company that leads a global social movement for inclusion through dance.’
If you would like to get involved in being part of Infinite Flow, please visit the website for more information.
Marisa wanted to create a dance studio that was inclusive to people of all disabilities after she was temporarily paralyzed from the neck down
Infinite Flow, which was founded in 2015, is America’s first professional wheelchair ballroom dance company. The goal for the dance studio is to erase the stigma of disability
Piotr is a world champion wheelchair ballroom dancer and is featured in the dance video