The Dancing Wheels Company is a professional dance company based in Cleveland, Ohio. Founded in 1980, it was the first in America to stage performances involving dancers with and without disabilities. [1] The School of Dancing Wheels was opened in 1990, which was also the start of a ten-year partnership with Cleveland Ballet. [2]
The company was founded by Mary Verdi-Fletcher, the first professional wheelchair dancer in the United States "and one of the first in the world." [1] Born with spina bifida, with her mother a dancer and her father a musician she had nevertheless always wanted to be a dancer. [3]
In her analysis of the company's communication methods, Margaret M. Quinlan says that it works "to challenge dominant representations of a 'normal' body and the opportunities and privileges that accompany it. Dancing Wheels is committed to changing the negativity and fear that surround the education, employment, and inclusion of persons with disabilities in the arts and broader communities". [4] The company uses its performances to enhance public awareness of disability issues and promote social change. The dance technique of translation involves drawing parallels between the movements and gestures of "sit-down" and "stand-up" dancers. [4]
Makaton is a language programme that uses signs together with speech and symbols, to enable people to communicate. It supports the development of essential communication skills such as attention, listening, comprehension, memory and expressive speech and language. The Makaton language programme has been used with individuals who have cognitive impairments, autism, Down's Syndrome, specific language impairment, multisensory impairment and acquired neurological disorders that have negatively affected the ability to communicate, including stroke and dementia patients.
Roller skating is traveling on surfaces with roller skates. It is a recreational activity, a sport, and a form of transportation. Roller rinks and skate parks are built for roller skating, though it also takes place on streets, sidewalks, and bike paths.
A longboard is a type of skateboard typified by longer decks and wheelbases, larger-diameter and softer (lower-durometer) wheels, and often lower riding height compared to street skateboards, though there is wide variation in the geometry and construction of longboards. Among the earliest types of skateboards, longboards were inspired by surfing, with early longboards drawing from the design of surfboards, resembling and mimicking the motion of riding a surfboard, but adapted to riding on streets in a practice known as sidewalk surfing.
Anna Margaret Glenn was an American advocate for people with disabilities and communication disorders and the wife of astronaut and senator John Glenn. A stutterer from an early age, Glenn was notable for raising awareness of stuttering among children and adults as well as other disabilities.
Brian Fortuna is an American professional ballroom dancer, choreographer and instructor.
Aleksandra "Ola" Jordan is a British-Polish professional ballroom dancer and model. She appeared as a professional on the British TV show Strictly Come Dancing from 2006 to 2015. After winning a championship event in her native Poland, Jordan moved to England and began a new partnership with James Jordan. They married on 12 October 2003 and live near Maidstone in Kent. In 2018, she became a judge on Dancing with the Stars: Taniec z gwiazdami in Poland.
AXIS Dance Company is a professional physically integrated contemporary dance company and dance education organization founded in 1987 and based in Oakland, California. It is one of the first contemporary dance companies in the world to consciously develop choreography that integrates dancers with and without physical disabilities. Their work has received nine Isadora Duncan Dance Awards and nine additional nominations for both their artistry and production values.
Kristina Rihanoff is a world finalist professional ballroom dancer, instructor, choreographer and author. She has a degree in Tourism and Hospitality; after finishing public school she studied with St Petersburg Branch of Modern Humanitarian Academy which has several colleges around Russia including Vladivostok.
Detroit Opera is the principal opera company in Michigan, USA. The company is based in Detroit, where it performs in the Detroit Opera House. On February 28, 2022, Michigan Opera Theatre changed its name to Detroit Opera.
Victoria Marks is a professor of choreography in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA, where she has been teaching since 1995. Before taking her post at UCLA she lived in London, where for three and a half years she worked on her own choreographic projects and served as head of choreography at London Contemporary Dance School, a conservatory for the training of professional dance artists in Europe. She led her own dance company, the Victoria Marks Performance Company in the 1980s.
Arthur James "Artie" Abrams is a fictional character from the Fox musical comedy-drama series Glee portrayed as the "glue" of the glee club. The character is portrayed by actor Kevin McHale, and appeared in Glee since its pilot episode, first broadcast on May 19, 2009. Artie was developed by Glee creators Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan. He is a guitarist and paraplegic manual wheelchair user who is a member of the glee club at the fictional William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio, where the show is set. Artie uses a wheelchair due to a spinal cord injury he sustained in a car crash at the age of eight. His storylines have seen him accept his disability, pine for the affections of fellow New Directions members, and dabble in film directing.
"Wheels" is the ninth episode of the American television series Glee. Written by series co-creator Ryan Murphy and directed by Paris Barclay, the episode premiered on the Fox network on November 11, 2009. "Wheels" sees the glee club hold a bake sale to raise money for a handicap accessible bus, so that club member Artie can travel with them to sectionals and Will challenges the students to experience life from a different point of view. Quinn struggles with the medical expenses incurred by her pregnancy, and Puck renews his offer to support her. Sue accepts a student with Down syndrome onto the cheerleading squad, and Kurt and Rachel compete for a solo performance.
The Cleveland Ballet was founded in Cleveland in 1972 by Dennis Nahat and Ian Horvath as a dance school, the School of Cleveland Ballet. It was the second incarnation of the Cleveland Ballet, having been preceded a ballet company of the same name founded in 1935 and succeeded by another founded in 2014.
Disability in the arts is an aspect within various arts disciplines of inclusive practices involving disability. It manifests itself in the output and mission of some stage and modern dance performing-arts companies, and as the subject matter of individual works of art, such as the work of specific painters and those who draw.
The physically integrated dance movement is part of the disability culture movement, which recognizes and celebrates the first-person experience of disability, not as a medical model construct but as a social phenomenon, through artistic, literary, and other creative means.
Rodney Bell is a male dancer born in Te Kuiti, North Island, New Zealand.
Sarah Swenson is an American modern dance choreographer, dancer, and teacher. She trained in early modern dance forms, and later studied postmodern dance. She began her career in the late 1980s in New York City, where she held numerous positions in the field. Swenson began as a teacher at the Alvin Ailey School, and was Rehearsal Director and Performance Coach for the Alvin Ailey Student Performance Group, for which she created her first works. She was also the Associate Artistic Director of Seraphim Dance Theatre, founded by the late Raymond C. Harris.
Alice Sheppard is a disabled choreographer and dancer from Britain. Sheppard started her career first as a professor, teaching English and Comparative Literature. After attending a conference on disability studies, she saw Homer Avila performed and was inspired. She became a member of the AXIS Dance Company and toured with them. She also founded her own dance company, Kinetic Light, which is an artistic coalition created in collaboration with other disabled dancers Laurel Lawson, Jerron Herman and Michael Maag, who also does lighting and is a video artist. A lot of Alice's work revolves intersectionality.
Dianne Claire Buswell is an Australian professional dancer. She is best known for her appearances on the British television show Strictly Come Dancing. After competing on Dancing with the Stars in Australia, she joined the British series in 2017, reaching the final in 2018 with her partner Joe Sugg.
Laurel Lawson is a modern dancer who performs, choreographs, and teaches dance for dancers in wheelchairs.