Dancers strut their stuff at Abilities Expo
Event showcases resources, gear and talent for wheelchair users
Amid claps and cheers, six girls dressed in sparkling pink tutus and matching gloves smiled brightly as they twirled, glided, waved their arms and rocked from side to side to Ariana Grande’s “They Don’t Know.”
Mayli, a 9-year-old with spina bifida, maneuvered with dexterity, gliding effortlessly as she wove her wheelchair in and out of the crowd that came to watch her and her squad, Ayita Dance, at the Abilities Expo, a three-day event at the NRG Center designed to showcase products, services and resources that allow people with disabilities to lead easier, more independent lives.
“I liked it because it’s the whole point (of ) dancing,” Mayli said. “You get to meet new friends and make new friendships.”
‘Glass is half full’
The expo was started in 1979 by Richard Wooten, a California activist who was frustrated with the lack of wheelchair options he had as a paraplegic. Without the internet, he organized the first expo as a largescale shopping experience for himself, but realized the event had a much broader appeal. Wooten and his family ran the expo for several years before selling it to a professional event organizing business.
It was sold in August 2008 to David Korse, president and CEO of Abilities Expo, and his business partner, Lewis Shomer.
“It’s a chance to factfind, it’s a chance to do due diligence, it’s a chance to compare products and services,” Korse said. “It’s a face-to-face ‘I can try it’ vs. just experiencing it digitally.”
Based in Southern California, Korse and Shomer are longtime friends who both have backgrounds in trade fair organizing. About 15 years ago, they started looking for a small project they could call their own.
The duo asked themselves, “Wouldn’t it be fun to have our own company, kind of a hobby company, as we got a little bit older that we could do part time to keep our minds from turning into chopped liver?”
Over the last decade, that part-time hobby grew into a full-time business with expos each year in Houston, Boston, San Mateo, Los Angeles, Toronto, New York and Chicago. While the original expo focused on mobility-related disabilities, the current iteration has expanded to include visual, auditory and developmental disabilities. Each expo takes at least 14 months to prepare, and plans have already been made for the Houston 2019 show.
This year, the Houston event boasted 134 exhibitors, including suppliers for cars, virtual reality programs, sports gear, clothes, accessories, home appliances, equipment, services and support groups. About 15 percent of the exhibitors were nonprofits, including the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, as well as local government offices, such as the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities. Performances such as the one given by the Ayita Dance were a part of several acts that Korse and Shomer added to the expo to demonstrate a skill and invite people to try it regardless of disability.
“About every hour, there’s a different demonstration,” Korse said. “It’s a chance to experience a wide variety of things you can do that perhaps you didn’t know you could do.”
Last year, 3,300 adult visitors and 700 children attended the Houston expo. Most have disabilities or are caretaker of a person with a disability.
“We just got so drawn to the community,” Korse said. “Everybody who goes to the show is in a pretty good mood, (they’re looking) for more independence, the glass is half full — really inspirational folks.”
‘First to dance’
The Ayita Dance team, based in Fort Worth, comprises nine girls ages 5 to 10 who all use wheelchairs. Sami Gibson, 32, founded the group in April 2015 after being inspired by her own daughter, Mayli Gibson.
“Mayli is Cherokee,” she said. “When I was looking for names, I found the Cherokee name that meant ‘first to dance’ and that’s ‘Ayita.’ And that’s the definition of Mayli … no matter what, if there was music playing, she was dancing.”
Mayli was born with spina bifida, a congenital condition that happens when a developing infant’s spinal column does not close completely, causing spinal defects with a range of consequences, including mobility problems. Mayli has used a wheelchair her whole life, but that never stopped her from dancing, and for years she was enrolled in classes for dancers who did not use wheelchairs. After seeing that instructors did not know how to make full use of a wheelchair in their choreography, Gibson decided it would be beneficial to create a dance group tailored toward children who shared her daughter’s experience with wheelchairs.
News of the dance class spread through word of mouth, and the team now meets every Friday night at the Benbrook YMCA for practices. Participation is free, and they raise money as a group for costumes and recitals.
“Caring for someone with a disability can be so expensive,” Gibson said. “Extracurricular activities that cost a lot sometimes (are) not an option for families. So we wanted to make it as low cost as possible.”
Six members of the team performed this summer’s choreography on Saturday and invited audience members to come dance with them.
“All the girls love to dance,” her mother said. “They love dancing, and they love wearing sparkly outfits, but it’s more about the friendships they build and being in a room full of girls just like them. Getting to be themselves, letting loose, knowing that their chair doesn’t make them different — I’ve seen (their) confidence grow so much.”
‘My superhero’
Inspiration for the Ayita Dance group came in part from “Push Girls,” a 2012 reality TV show that chronicled the lives of five women who use wheelchairs. One of those women, Auti Angel, led a wheelchair dance workshop for all three days of the Abilities Expo.
Angel, who started dancing at 2, left her Torrance, Calif., home at 18 to start a professional career in dance, choreography and music. She booked jobs with several wellknown hip-hop artists, including N.W.A., Kid ’n Play and LL Cool J, but her rising success was cut short by a car accident on May 3, 1992. While she survived, her back snapped in half, permanently damaging her spinal cord and leaving her paralyzed from the waist down.
The next seven years were marked by depression and the sudden loss of her mother to cancer, which led to drug abuse and jail time. It was only through her passion for dance and her faith that Angel says she found the strength to emerge from the darkest years of her life to continue her professional dance career in a wheelchair and to become a motivational speaker.
“Even when I was in jail, I would dance,” she said. “Dance is my superhero.”
On Saturday, Angel, clad in a black shirt emblazoned with the motto “Slay All Day” in gold letters, led the audience through her freestyle dance workshop, which she has led for more than 15 years. She was overwhelmed as she watched one of the girls who had danced with the Ayita Dance Team easily keeping up with her steps.
“To see what it’s grown into, to this new generation, and to see them doing things that I could only imagine, my heart was catapulted into the universe,” she said. “There are no words. I’m grateful to God for blessing me with a gift I can give. I’m grateful that I’ve been allowed to have a heart to give.”
The dancing of Angel and Ayita Dance carried a message of positivity, hope and strength to onlookers.
“A lot of people look at me, and when I say I’ve gone through a lot, they automatically look at the chair,” Angel said. “The chair, to be honest with you, was the last thing… My chair is my wings. It allows me to fly to wherever I want to go.”