David Toole was 26 when he found relief from his postal work in Britain in an unexpected way: as a novice dancer at a workshop, where he showed intuitive grace and athleticism while performing on his hands. His legs had been amputated in childhood.
“Charlotte Darbyshire, who also danced at the workshop, said in a phone interview, recalling the workshop in Leeds, in northern England, in 1991. “But very quickly, he discarded his wheelchair, and was more comfortable on his hands. We were stunned, really. He was an incredible mover, with great balance and a natural gift for performance.”
Inspired, Mr. Toole told his mother about his newfound ambition.
“Can I just remind you,” she was said to have replied, “that you don’t have any legs?”
Undeterred, he became a leading disabled dancer in Britain performing with various troupes and achieved global renown as a featured dancer in the opening ceremony of the 2012 Paralympic Games in London.
Dave was born with sacral agenesis, a congenital condition in which the lowest portion of the spine that forms the joint with the hips fails to develop. Severely malformed, his legs were amputated when he was 18 months old.
When he was 3 or 4, he experienced one of the first of many indignities he would feel as a disabled person when he was placed naked on a table as several doctors stared at him.
“I have a vague memory of being stood on a platform, being pointed at and talked about,” he told The Times of London in 2012. “It made me feel like the Elephant Man.”
www.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/arts/david-toole-disabled-dancer-with-grace-in-his-hands-dies-at-56.html