His passion keeps him positive
TEXT: ELLEN MACKENZIE. PICTURES: ROBERT TRATHEN.
A
lmost three decades
ago, Rodney Bell’s
world fell apart
when a motorbike
accident left him
paralysed from the chest
down. Fast forward to 2019
and the Te Kuiti local is now
an award-winning dancer –
and he’s achieved it all
from his wheelchair.
“My accident was a blessing
in a lot of ways because now
I see the world differently and
have a different respect for
life,” the soft-spoken 48-year-
old tells.
But despite his positivity
now, there were times he
struggled mentally during his
recovery from that fateful day
in 1990, when he lost control
of his bike after having a few
beers with friends.“I had so much support from
friends and family, but there
were moments on my own
when I kept replaying what
happened over in my head,”
he recalls.
“The first thing people say
is, ‘You can do it, you can walk
again.’ They don’t say it’s going
to give you a strong mind or a
new perspective – they just
talk about walking, so that’s
what I had running through
my head for a long time. In
the end, I didn’t walk again,
but I found dance instead.”
After a 10-year stint
performing in the US – where
he faced many challenges
and was even homeless for
a time – Rodney returned
home to New Zealand in 2016
and started developing an
autobiographical show calledMeremere about his journey.
Since then, he’s toured
around the country, adapting
and adding to the performance
each year as his life changes.
“It’s very therapeutic
for me,” he tells of the show.
“There’s a lot of healing going
on because I’m performing
memories that are a little
bit rough.”
And Rodney’s not the only
one who finds his show an
emotional rollercoaster.
“People cry after my shows.
They will come up to me
afterwards, crying and holding
my hand and I share tears with
them,” he says. “Last year, I
also performed at some prisons.
You have this stereotype
around prisoners, so I went
in there thinking I had to be
tough and masculine. But Ijust got in there and did my
thing, and a lot of them
ended up crying too.”
Yet his favourite
performance throughout
his 15 years as a dancer
would have to be last year
in his hometown.
“I’ve spent so much of
my life dancing, but my
family don’t really know
much about it. They’d seen
me on TV, but they had
never seen me perform in
the flesh and in my element,”
he recalls.
“My mum came and
she had never watched me
before, so I brought her on
stage at the end. She just
had a different look from
then on – she understood
how passionate I was. So
that was veryspecial.” #Real
Rodney’sda
partner Bianca
Hyslopperformsin
partsofMeremere.“It’s very
therapeutic
for me,” Rodney
says of his
creative outlet.RODNEY’S DANCING
ON WHEELS!
pMoving people to tears
nceWoman’s Day 49