The RISE Summit on SDoH: Building Healthy Communities to Enable Whole Person Health kicked off Monday with an inspiring keynote address on choreographing a culture of infinite inclusion.
Marisa Hamamoto, founder, Infinite Flow Dance, delivered an inspiring keynote address about her story as a stroke survivor, late-diagnosed autistic, and 4th generation Japanese American, and how her life experiences inspired her passion to design unforgettable experiences that cultivate inclusion and belonging, with a specialty in disability inclusion.
A life-altering injury
A college student at Keio University in Tokyo, Hamamoto was enjoying an off-campus dance class when her life changed instantly. She collapsed to the ground and became completely paralyzed from the neck down. Finding herself in a small hospital conference room two days later, sitting in a wheelchair, Hamamoto was told she had a spinal cord infarction, also known as spinal stroke, and there was a chance that she may never walk again.
“My heart froze. It felt like the end of my life,” she said. “Because to me at that time, not being able to walk meant not being able to dance. And what was there to life without dance?”
It was the nurses and health care office staff that got Hamamoto through that time emotionally, she said. “I would not be on this stage had it not been for health care being such a robust, important industry.”
Two months later, miraculously, Hamamoto walked out of the hospital. But she still felt paralyzed on the inside—recognizing that the stroke triggered years of trauma filled with countless rejections in the dance industry and criticisms of her body, talent, and ethnicity. She was scared to dance and struggled to find the meaning in her life.
Another turning point
It was while attending a business holiday party in Tokyo, three and a half years after the stroke, that she experienced a turning point in her life. Watching a salsa dance performance that got everyone in the party dancing and laughing together, herself included, Hamamoto felt her inner voice telling her to get back to dancing.
“Fear is a compass for growth,” she said.
Rediscovering her love for dancing, Hamamoto became a certified ballroom dance instructor and reignited her dancing career.
Knowing all too well the feeling of being criticized, judged, and left out throughout her dance career prior to her stroke, Hamamoto was determined to create a space for others who also felt left out.
“I asked myself, ‘who was left out? What can I do? And how can I make a difference?’”
A program to advance disability inclusion
Reading a statistic that there were 1.3 billion people with disabilities in the world, Hamamoto felt called to give them a space to enjoy dance. She began searching for a dance partner with a disability and found Adelfo, a professional wheelchair bodybuilder who was open to doing something at the intersection of dance and disability alongside Hamamoto.
One thing led to another, and one person led to another, she said. All of which empowered Hamamoto to create Infinite Flow Dance, a professional dance company and nonprofit that employs disabled and nondisabled dancers with diverse identities, with a mission to advance disability inclusion, one dance at a time.
The award-winning, Los Angeles-based professional dance company is celebrating 10 years this year. Hamamoto and Adelfo still dance together and have done more than 350 performances together, many of which have gone viral on social media. Outside of the dance studio, they visit schools and perform dances to inspire youth and demonstrate inclusion, they continue to be featured across media outlets, and according to Hamamoto, they are just getting started.
“Right now, words are being erased, but I'm just here to tell you—just because you erase the words doesn't mean that we disabled people are just going to disappear,” she said. “So, it's important to keep disabled people in mind. Inclusion inspires innovation, and disability inclusion benefits everyone.”