Through interweaving dance and dialogue, Material Bodies is a sensual and cinematic look at the relationship between amputees and their limbs. Composed of five artist vignettes, this visceral and colorful short film explores how prostheses can transcend their function to become an accessory to identity, a form of self-expression, and even a dance partner.

Mickaella Dantas is the Brazilian dancer casting fluid movements throughout this film. She is a member of Candoco Dance Company with which she performed, alongside Coldplay, at the London Paralympic Games Closing Ceremony in 2012. As a contemporary and accessible dance practitioner, Dantas’s philosophy is that any living body has power, and joy can come from discovering how to channel it.

Journalist and Ph.D. researcher Kat Hawkins speaks about dance and disability and has documented their experience of becoming a double amputee at the age of 18 for BBC, Huffington Post, and ITV News. Hawkins has cited internalized ableism as a reason they believed dance would never be part of their life again, but after a seven-year journey of self-love and taking pride in their new body, Hawkins joined Candoco Dance Company to redefine and explore what disabled bodies are considered capable of.

While filming Material Bodies, director Dorothy Allen-Pickard was drawn to the story of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, whose right leg was amputated below the knee. “Her life and work demonstrate how a prosthetic limb can be much more than a practical, medical device,” says Allen-Pickard, referencing how Kahlo had rejected her hospital-issue prosthesis in favor of a red, custom-made, lace-up boot adorned with Aztec dragons. “It can be a fashion statement, an extension of oneself, and a form of art. Material Bodies looks at the intersection between disability and design to illustrate that you’re only as disabled as your environment makes you.” 

Daniel Bermingham is Assistant Curator of, Young People’s Programmes at Tate, whose practice concerns queer, disabled bodies in public spaces. Bermingham cites the LGBTQ community's use of levity and satire—tools typically used by marginalized groups to reclaim destructive narratives about themselves—as a “lifeline” for those with non-normative bodies.

Caitlin McMullan is a Glasgow-based artist, researcher, and disability advocate who co-founded Sensory Prosthetics. Working with UCL’s Materials Library at the Institute of Making, Sensory Prosthetics explores amputees' sensory and aesthetic preferences in the materials offered for their prosthetic limbs. Against a backdrop of various textiles and cloth, Dantas, Bermingham, and Hawkins crush, stretch and flatten the materials of McMullan’s research which also serve as this film’s multicolored set design.

Material Bodies raises questions about accessibility, appropriation, and the othering of people with limb differences and encourages audiences to not view disability as a polar binary to ability, but as an alternative way of interacting with the world.

Dorothy Allen-Pickard is a director and multidisciplinary theater-maker from London who is invested in social change and platforming groups whose stories are often left out of public purview. You can see her previous work on mental illness in The Mess, and on hearing impairment in A Sonic Pulse.