Dance As A Crutch (Or Is It The Other Way Around?)

Bill Shannon is a street and stage performer, sculptor and video artist, but he is widely recognized for his distinctive dance style. Known in the club-dance world as Crutchmaster, he uses his curved-bottomed crutches to extend his limbs in the way ballerinas use point shoes. The crutches enable him ‘to streamline methods of weight distribution’ and to make ‘level changes from floor work to standing.’ To describe what he calls the ‘Shannon technique,’ he uses terms taken from the worlds of skateboarding and the breakdancing of b-boys.”