TAKING FLIGHT
Dance class for wheelchair users ‘like floating through the clouds. Nothing else compares’
Rehana Meru partners with Ken Faber at Wheel Dance, Canada’s first subsidized wheelchair social dance program. The class has been running at a Vaughan ballet studio for two months. Its popularity is growing by the week, its founder says,
Every Wednesday, wheelchair user Randy McNeil heads down to the Victoria Ballet Academy in Vaughan for ballroom dancing lessons. The former industrial mechanic smiles as he is spun and twirled around the dance floor in his chair. “It’s freedom. Complete freedom,” he says. “It’s like the chair doesn’t exist, it’s gone and it’s just my partner and I floating around the dance floor and away we go.” McNeil, 51, is a loyal member of Wheel Dance, the first subsidized wheelchair social dance program in Canada.
Wheel Dance founder and director Iris Kulbatski hopes the program will one day lead to the birth of a Canadian wheelchair ballroom dancing team at the Paralympics. The sport, practised in 29 countries, is already governed by the International Paralympic Committee though not a part of the Paralympic Games.
Kulbatski, a scientist who specializes in spinal cord regeneration research, says ballroom dancing has huge benefits for disabled people.
“It offers tremendous social, psychological and physical benefits,” she says.
“It’s a great upper body workout and it gives them a chance to come and participate with able-bodied dancers.”
Wheel Dance has been running a weekly class at the newly retrofitted, accessible ballet studio in Vaughan for two months now and the numbers grow every week, says Kulbatski, adding there were 10 partners last week.
Each wheelchair user is paired with an able-bodied instructor who guides them through the steps.
In a demonstration at the ballet studio on Sunday night, six partners took to the dance floor. The standing dancers held the hands of their seated partners and spun, twisted and twirled them across the floor in time to the beat of the music and the squeal of rubber wheels.
Despite a few near collisions, all the dancers smiled throughout the routine.
The Ontario Trillium Foundation recently gave Wheel Dance a grant, reducing the cost of classes to just $5 per person.
The grant, just under $300,000 over three years, pays for the instructors, extra wheelchairs and marketing, Kulbatski says.
“It’s important to be able to subsidize the classes because people on fixed incomes can’t afford to pay for a private instructor, so this removes the economic barriers.”
McNeil, who has been a wheelchair user since 2006 because of multiple sclerosis, says the dance classes are an “amazing experience.” He encourages other wheelchair users to join. “Once you’ve tried it, I’m sure you will be hooked. “As somebody in a wheelchair, we are limited to where we can hang out, go and do things. Here I can have fun and just let go of my push rims. “I’m able to let go and magically go ‘round the dance floor. I haven’t been able to do that since being sat down.” Ken Faber, 52, has also attended since the program started. “I really enjoy it. Once we get on the floor the butterflies go away and it feels like a smooth motion floating through the clouds,” he says. “Nothing else compares.” Faber has been in a wheelchair since he was 31. He was inspecting a construction site in King City and fell six metres onto concrete, breaking his neck. He is paralyzed from the chest down and says the dance classes help strengthen and stretch his upper body. Nancy Clarke, 46, has been dancing in her wheelchair for about five years and helps train the instructors and disabled dancers at Wheel Dance. “I love to dance and I love the idea of dancing with someone able-bodied,” she says. Clarke has been in a wheelchair since she was 5, after a blood clot in her spine paralyzed her legs. “Dancing is a huge physical benefit. It involves a lot of inner core strength and good posture,” she says. “You feel free. You don’t feel confined to a chair.”