London - This is Bill Shannon. Just don't call him the crutch master. 

"So when I started dancing in circles in New York. people started calling me crutch master. And I started using it as my stage name. But then I realized that you never master the crutch. You just die."

Shannon has bilateral hip deformity, the result of a childhood illness. He relies on a set of crutches to help him get around.  

"As a kid you don't treat crutches as some sort of a burden. It's like an extra toy that you carry around.  
The history of my technique of dancing evolved out of the demands of play. Keeping up with your peers. That kind of thing. Survival is what it all gets down to in the end."

As a professional street artist and dancer, Shannon is in London for the Liberty Festival, an annual event for artists with disabilities. Its 10th anniversary coincides with the Paralympics .  He also teaches "The Shannon Technique", a form of dancing with crutches and a skateboard.