“…So irresistible has been AXIS’ rise that one long ago stopped marveling at how these performers transcend handicaps…In fact, one attends their concerts with the expectations one brings to any superior repertory modern dance company.” Allan Ulrich, Voice of Dance

AXIS began in 1987 when founding Artistic Director Thais Mazur had the great idea and creative vision to gather a group of dancers with and without disabilities to explore dance and create a performance piece. This first piece premiered in 1988, receiving a standing ovation. With Thais as a driving force, AXIS quickly took off from there, receiving offers to perform and requests for classes and other education programs. In this first decade the Company developed a new, innovative movement vocabulary distinctly its own and a language for speaking about and teaching ‘physically integrated’ dance. AXIS introduced audiences and presenters locally, nationally and internationally to this new form of contemporary dance by bringing to stage an exciting and impressive body of work. AXIS filled an important and otherwise unmet need by providing a forum where dancers with and without disabilities of all ages and levels of dance experience could create and dance together. But it wasn’t always easy convincing some that AXIS was creating dance and not ‘just doing therapy.’

In 1997 as the Company entered our second decade, AXIS went through a change in leadership and a corresponding change in its philosophy, artistic direction and education focus. The new Co-direction Judith Smith and Nicole Richter, AXIS set out to radically increase the artistic quality and range of its repertory by commissioning world-class choreographers from outside the company as well as continuing to support its in-house choreographers. Inspired by Nicole’s work in the UK, AXIS also dramatically expanded its education and outreach programming, renaming it Dance Access and soon after adding a youth component Dance Access/KIDS!

Under the artistic direction of Judith Smith since 2001, the company has collaborated with and commissioned works by such innovators as Bill T. Jones, Stephen Petronio, Joe Goode, Joanna Haigood, David Dorfman, Alex Ketley, Kate Weare, Sonya Delwaide, Victoria Marks, Ann Carlson, Margaret Jenkins, Joan Jeanrenaud, Meredith Monk, Fred Frith, Eve Beglarian, Katrina Wreede and SoVoSo. More than any other company in the United States, AXIS has been a bridge between contemporary dance and physically integrated dance.

Now entering its third decade, AXIS’ vision is to remain a leader in the emerging field of physically integrated dance by continuing to set new artistic and educational standards. Likewise, it aims to be a contender in the field of contemporary dance by commissioning renowned choreographers, composers and designers to create an exciting, innovative touring repertory. AXIS wants its work to challenge traditional definitions of ‘dance’, ‘dancer’ and ‘ability’ to expand dance to include an entire community that has been virtually left out of the performing arts. At AXIS, our biggest dream is to make a lasting contribution to contemporary dance.

Over the course of its history, AXIS has performed and taught throughout the United States as well as in Germany, Siberia, Slovenia and Croatia, earning international praise for its high artistic and educational standards and groundbreaking movement vocabulary. The Company has established itself as an important Bay Area dance company and has gained national visibility as an exciting contemporary repertory company. AXIS has created OVER sixty repertory works, two evening length works and two works for young audiences. AXIS has been commissioned to create works for Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Bates Dance Festival, San Francisco Exploratorium and the CAL Performances and UAM/PFA's Off the Wall series.

•Choreography to Joe Goode in '08 for "the beauty that was mine, through the middle, without stopping... " choreographed by Joe Goode • Ensemble Performance to dancers Nadia Adame and Jacques Poulin-Denis in '02 for "Sans Instruments" choreographed by Sonya Delwaide • Company Performance in '00 for AXIS' entire Home Season;

• Company Performance of "the beauty that was mine, through the middle, without stopping..." choreography by Joe Goode in ‘09• Choreography for ‘Waypoint’ choreography by Margaret Jenkins with Melanie Elms in ‘06

They've been featured in several national and local broadcasts including KRCB’s One in 5 Stories, KQED's Spark, WNET's nationally-broadcast production of People In Motion as well as in a documentary video, Dancing From the Inside Out, which won over a dozen awards including Dance On Camera in New York and the National Educational Film and Video Festival. AXIS dancers have also served as consultants and models for the creation of Life Forms choreography software used to introduce disabled students to dance and choreography.

Among their most notable performances are the Olympic Arts Festival, Salt Lake City; Meredith Monk's 40th Anniversary Celebration at St. Marks Church in-the-Bowery & the World Financial Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; New York; Central Park Summerstage, New York; Paralympics, Atlanta; Florida Dance Festival, Miami; Walker Arts Center/Southern Theater, Minneapolis; Cal Performances and UAM/PFA, Berkeley; The Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH; Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Burlington, VT; UMass Fine Arts Center, Amherst, MA; University of Koln, Germany; Dance Umbrella's International Festival of Aerial Dance in Boston; and Railroad Theater, Novosibirsk, Siberia.

In collaboration with Dance Umbrella, AXIS planned and curated the International Festival of Wheelchair Dance in June 1997. This was the first event ever of this magnitude and prestige in the history of this relatively new dance form. To continue their commitment to furthering the field of physically integrated dance, they offer an annual Summer Intensive, which is attended by dancers from around the world.

AXIS' extensive community education/outreach program, Dance Access and its youth component Dance Access/KIDS! offers classes and workshops for adults and youth of all abilities, school assemblies, presentations, lecture demonstrations, and residencies locally and abroad. Dance Access is a model program that was presented in the Kennedy Center's national Imagination Celebration at the 2002 Olympic Arts Festival, received the CA Arts Council Exemplary Arts award in 2002, is currently on the roster of Young Audiences Northern California, and is featured on the Young Audience's national Arts4Learning website.

AXIS Dance Company has received prestigious support from the National Endowment for the Arts; CA Arts Council; City of Oakland; Creative Work Fund; Walter and Elise Haas Fund; William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; Meet the Composer/Commissioning Music USA, MetLife; National Dance Project; National Performance Network; Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation MAP Fund; San Francisco Foundation; Target; True North Foundation and Zellerbach Family Fund, to name a few.