Tap-shoe delight is a shoo-in
Dancing with disability group will tap in to applause at Kitchener city hall
— After Jill Simpson put out a call asking for tap shoes for her Dancing with disability class, what she received was an unexpected deluge.
“We did a tap shoe drive and collected so many shoes, it was unbelievable,” said Simpson who, along with her group of dancers will show off their new shoes and cool moves at Kitchener city hall on Monday, from 1 to 3 p.m.
The event is part of the Independent Living Across Canada Day, a collaboration between the Independent Living Centre Waterloo Region, the cities of Kitchener and Waterloo as well as Independent Living Canada and Dancing with disability.
“We have 30 dancers,” she said. “At the Rotunda, they’ll be sitting in a circle, in chairs essentially doing a class, but in public.” To add to the ambience, local musician Tim Moher will perform with his band, TM Jazz.
Simpson hopes the free demonstration will show the public that people with any sort of challenge can, indeed, dance.
“A lot of people don’t know they can do this,” she said. “The idea of it is, we want them to say ‘if we can do this with a physical disability, then we have no reason not to live life outside the box.’”
Simpson believes everyone has an innate ability to keep rhythm and that such skill is not lost with the onset of illness, it might just need some tweaking.
The dance teacher has been working with two groups of adults who live with everything from Alzheimer’s to Parkinson’s and she believes dance has helped them regain confidence as well as improve cognitive and physical abilities.
She said there are plenty of studies to back her up. Tap, however, is something new for the group and oddly, it came about after she heard a drumming group and was inspired.
“We can’t drum but we can dance,” Simpson said.
But they needed shoes, and new tap shoes are expensive, particularly for people who are often on a retirement or disability pensions.
So Simpson put the call out and within weeks, the shoes started rolling in, shoes in all sizes, shoes that were sometimes like new.
Most of the donors had an interesting history.
“One had been a burlesque dancer,” she said. “One gentleman showed up at the door looking very dapper. He said: ‘I gave up tap dancing 25 years ago and I wondered what do I do with the shoes?’”
Then he thought that one day, the right person will need those shoes. Simpson was that person.
In all, she has collected 80 pairs in all sizes, including for big guys, enough for everyone in her group and lots for any new members.
“Everyone loved to tap from the moment they put their tap shoes on,” she said. “I do really simple stuff. It’s all about the rhythm.”
Dancing together, even though they are all sitting rather than standing, has given the group a greater sense of purpose as they all move in sync to the music, a new experience for most of participants, particularly since the onset of their illness.
“A lot of them didn’t know they could do this,” Simpson said, adding that too often life can become about “coping instead of celebrating what they can do.”
Monday’s event will feature information about inclusive recreation and leisure activities, live music by the TM Jazz Band and a talk by motivational speaker, Jeff Martin, author of the self-published 2010 book “New Beginnings: Empowerment Through Spirituality and Inspiration.”
Martin suffered brain injuries and later had an arm amputated following a motorcycle crash.
For more information on the event or Dancing with disability, contact: Jill Simpson, 519-9983024, jill@bodymindandmovementprogram.com