Jerron Herman, a disabled creative, came to New York to write and to work in the theater. While doing an education apprenticeship at the New Victory Theatre, Herman met choreographer Sean Curran. Initially, he was Curran’s assistant in his workshop, but was invited to be a participant, learning modern dance techniques. By midweek, Curran introduced Herman to choreographer Heidi Latsky to set up an audition. For a year, Herman split his time between college and professional dance rehearsals. “It was just a curiosity, a cool anecdote to say ‘I was a dancer for a year,’ but I kept getting work,” he told Able News. He followed his curiosity to choreography.
Herman’s lived experience with cerebral palsy afforded him the ability to investigate a natural embodiment and use it as a framework not only for disabled dancers, but also for able-bodied dancers. “Dance allows a context for your body to change,” he said.
In 2022, Herman choreographed “Vitruvian,” which unraveled the image of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man as it relates to his own body, lines of symmetry, and the Western ideal. Beyond choreography, he was involved with every aspect of the production—lighting, dramaturgy, sets, and more.
Herman speaks to the power of being a disabled storyteller in his creative work: “Disabled bodies add to the narrative, the color palette, the context of things. Identity and theme comes out of your own lived experience and moves into abstraction.”
Herman’s latest endeavor is co-directing Paola Prestini’s opera, “Sensorium Ex.” With six principals, a mixed 12-person chorus, a chamber orchestra, and electronics, the opera explores themes of love, romance, scientific ethics, corporate greed, and the nature of voice beyond language in a multi-sensory narrative woven together at the intersections of disability and artificial intelligence. Herman crafted movements that he described as both “pictorial and assistive.” Through this process, he wanted to depict interdependence leading from a disabled voice between all the actors of all abilities.
“It’s one of those high art pieces that literally says the disabled voice is worthy of an operatic backdrop,” Herman explained. ”There is no separation between the depth of experience and the depth of the medium.”
This performance, alongside Herman’s overall body of work, truly reflects the legacy of the Americans with Disabilities Act, creating opportunities and bringing disabled artists into the spotlight—a celebration of resilience and creativity.
Read all 35 stories of the New York-based leaders profiled in our ADA 35 edition.