When Adrianne Haslet-Davis lost her left foot in the Boston Marathon bombing, her left leg was amputated to the knee. Less than a year later, she's back on her feet and dancing again.
Why you should listen
To ballroom dancer Adrianne Haslet-Davis, dancing was everything. So when she lost her left foot in the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, she vowed — from her hospital bed — that she would dance again. Two hundred days later, standing on the TED2014 stage, she did just that. With the help of MIT prostheticist Hugh Herr, Haslet-Davis performed in Vancouver for the first time since the bombing.
Adrianne Haslet-Davis’ TED Talk
Hugh Herr, Adrianne Haslet-Davis
The new bionics that let us run, climb and dance
18 minutes 46 secondsHugh Herr is building the next generation of bionic limbs, robotic prosthetics inspired by nature's own designs. Herr lost both legs in a climbing accident 30 years ago; now, as the head of the MIT Media Lab's Biomechatronics group, he shows his incredible technology in a talk that's both technical and deeply personal — with the help of ballroom dancer Adrianne Haslet-Davis, who lost her left leg in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and performs again for the first time on the TED stage.Posted Mar 2014
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How This Talk Came To Be
A powerful talk from Hugh Herr, 7 years in the making
May 27, 2014
“As you can see, my legs are bionic,” said Hugh Herr on the TED2014 stage. “The artificial part of my body is malleable, able to take on any form, any function, a blank slate through which to create structures that can extend beyond biological capability.” Standing tall in a suit hemmed at his knees, Herr […]
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My journey to dance again: CNN report on Adrianne Haslet-Davis
March 31, 2014
Adrianne Haslet-Davis performs the rumba at the end of Hugh Herr’s talk, “The new bionics that let us run, climb, dance.” Normally, this would not be a big deal for a professional ballroom dance teacher. But Haslet-Davis lost her left foot in the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013. This rumba was her first public […]
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In case you missed it: Day 3 at TED2014
March 20, 2014
Day 3 at TED2014 was dense with science, design, conversation. Here’s a quick recap of some highlights: Hugh Herr and Adrianne Haslet-Davis’s surprise dance Hugh Herr is a bionics designer and multiple amputee. He gave a talk that was half mind-blowing — full of extraordinary advances in prosthetics, like bionic designs that produce the same forces […]
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