Validation and virtuosity: Perspectives on difference and authorship/control in dance

This article brings together two different perspectives, dance and law, to ask questions about authorship and ownership in disabled dance. The focus is on Caroline Bowditch’s short film project, A Casting Exploration, in which she is recast as the female dancer in a duet section from Joan Cleville’s choreography for Scottish Dance Theatre, Love Games. We explore what medical law, human rights law and intellectual property law might say about Bowditch’s role. We show how the film project raises questions about the aesthetic properties of the double duet, the politics of sameness and difference, and who can claim ‘ownership’ of the dance.