My name’s Nick Lawson. I originate from Berkshire. I have been dance training for 7 years. I’ve just completed my degree at London Contemporary Dance School and now I’m doing a postgrad performance course. It’s called EDge which is a semi-professional company. It’s kind of like the next step up and this year’s really been about finding who I am as a dancer.
My disability is that I’m dyslexic and I have been aware of being dyslexic from the age of seven. It’s been a long journey to try and understand my dyslexia in my learning process.
I saw a professional dance company perform (and I thought) “ok, something’s kind of missing in the sports, it’s very physical but there’s also like another element to being physical, like the softness and also a way of expression”.
You find in dance that you can express yourself through movement and being dyslexic I find it hard to kind of express myself, especially in writing and sometimes in words as well, finding the right words. So this is like another way of expressing who I am as a person.
For myself and some other colleagues we took our problems to the school and said “Ok, being dyslexic we find it hard to pick up material. We find it hard to remember material”. They asked “Do you mind us telling the teachers?” I’m like “No that’s fine.” ‘Cause I thought it would be best for them to be aware, to understand that dyslexia actually affects not just your writing, it affects every single part of your life. The teachers have been very supportive and very kind of strict on me. So they are like “Nick, do you know what you are doing?” I’m like “Yes”. And they are like “Nick. Do it again.” And forcing me to repeat and repeat and repeat, which then lets the material sink into my body rather that my brain.
I’ve had a lot of physical tutorials. So not just talking about written work but physical, like we’d go over exercises slowly together. I’d say I’ve learned to not panic in the class situation and just to say to myself, “it’s ok that I don’t know the sequence” and I’ll kind of take it down to the very basics like “ok I go over there, I go over there and then I put on like the next layer, that?s like “ok. Then I move my leg like that, or I move my head.” So it?s being very patient with yourself.
I’ve got a disabled students allowance. So I got a camcorder so I can record class, I can record myself making material, ’cause I can find that very difficult making material on my own body and then remembering it, especially I the course I am doing now. We have like four professional pieces which we kind of have a big part in making the movement material in. And the use of the camcorder there, without it I would have sunk.
There’s that passion inside of me which I couldn?t let go of.