Way above me

About ten months ago I went to the Paralympics and, like many other people watching the athletes' astonishing achievements, had to do a huge reassessment of what happens in my head when I hear the word 'disabled'.

On the first evening of this year's Greenwich and Docklands International Festival I saw a performance next to the Thames by the theatre company Graeae which is made up entirely of actors with disabilities.

I was surprised by this graceful dance high above our heads in the trees. Why was I?

In less than a year, I've slipped back into lazy, stereotyped assumptions about what disabled people can (not) do and I feel thoroughly ashamed. How much is my surprise part of what prevents people with disabilities achieving what they can achieve, in sport, the arts or anything else?