The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Dancing Wheels hopes to inspire
Dancers from the Dancing Wheels Dance Company had hoped to empower and inspire the more than 100 Broadmoor School/Broadening Abilities students they performed for this week.
And the students excitedly watched as the dancers leaped, twirled, and wheeled their way around the gym. Many eagerly participated with the dancers as they interacted with the students and demonstrated dance moves.
The Dancing Wheels is a professional and integrated dance company which features dancers with and without disabilities. According to its website, the company is one of the premier arts and disabilities programs in the country.
This is the second time the dancers have performed at Broadmoor. They made a previous appearance in 2016.
Their Nov. 14, performance featured Matthew Bowman and Kaitlyn Fabian, both able-bodied dancers, and Tanya Ewell, who dances in a wheelchair due to paralysis she suffered from a car accident 10 years ago.
During the program between dances, the dancers spoke with the students about disabilities, and accessibility for the disabled, and ways people with different disabilities adapt.
Ewell believes that the dance company’s performances can give people more insight on art not just in the form of an ablebody person but artistry in the form of an artist.
Her hope is that it will give the students she was performing for some motivation to chase their dreams.
“A lot of times they might be afraid of what people think of them, how they look, how they sound, how they talk,” Ewell said. “But by seeing someone else put themselves in that vulnerable state it may give them that same feeling of ‘hey if she can do it and not worry about what someone thinks of her than maybe they can. too.’”
Bowman hopes the students come away from the viewing the performance with a sense of empowerment that no matter what they are dealing with that they can find an avenue or means to express themselves.
“Just like Dancing Wheels allows anyone with any ability to work together, the arts allow any individual to do that as well and I hope that they see that and think they can overcome whatever situation they are dealing with,” Bowman said.
Fabian wants the students to get the idea that dance isn’t just one body type or one ability but dance is for anyone of any age or any body.
“Dance and movement is so important for the body not only physically but emotionally so I hope they see the joy in it and try out some of the movements.
“It’s important for Broadmoor students to see performances like this one to prove it is possible to do anything you are passionate about regardless of physical limitations, ”said School Age Program Supervisor Mary Elshaw. “It was nice to hear the dancers share with the students that different forms of art can be translated differently by different artists.”
An honorarium was paid with grant funds from the Deepwood Foundation as well as money raised by LEEP students through the selling of their artwork and other items throughout the school year.”