Blog

Dancing Wheels Company Brings Inspiration to OI School of Dance

By Laura Jackson Roberts

On March 19, Oglebay Institute’s School of Dance will offer a workshop. And while they offer many such workshops each year, this one will be something special. The Dancing Wheels Company of Cleveland, Ohio – a physically integrated dance company – will offer instruction on movement and performance for dancers with disabilities, including physical, sensory, or developmental. Dancers with and without mobility are invited to attend and participate in this one-of-a-kind experience, as are non-disabled dancers.

Integrating Diversity and Disability Advocacy with the Arts

The Dancing Wheels Company was founded by Mary Verdi-Fletcher. She was born with spina bifida but didn’t permit her mobility issues to keep her from dance and movement. Not only has Verdi-Fletcher learned how to move with strength and grace with her wheelchair, but she’s created this unique company and school to teach others with and without disabilities to do the same. Performances integrate diversity and disability advocacy with the arts.

Cheryl Pompeo, the director of OI’s School of Dance known around the building as Miss Cheryl, is excited to welcome The Dancing Wheels Company each year. She remembers first seeing the company’s founder on an episode of “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood” many years ago and it struck her as extraordinary. Dancers have special chairs that don’t tip over, that a full-bodied dancer can climb on. They can stack dancers and create incredible formations.

I found Dancing Wheels on YouTube and it’s an understatement to say they’re  an impressive company. The dance is so fluid and beautifully choreographed that you quickly forget the division between abled and disabled. I was particularly taken by a Riverdance routine in which the dancers created a whirlwind of motion and energy.

Miss Cheryl agrees, “It was like nothing I’d ever seen before,” she said. “They are so gracious to come here and share their art with us.”

Combating Negative Stereotypes

The Dancing Wheels Company seeks to provide role models for young people and to combat negative stereotypes. It’s not merely “wheelchair ballet;” it’s an expression of the human spirit. Dancing Wheels believes that expression comes from people of all abilities.

The workshop doesn’t just speak to dancers. Last year, a group of West Liberty University physical therapy students attended, as did some of their school educators. They took what they learned back to the classroom and can put that knowledge to use with special needs students. The idea is to continue to integrate children with special needs in their classrooms.

When I asked Miss Cheryl about the value of dance as therapy, she said, “Dance is therapy, but I think it’s very interesting that dance is movement. So, whether you are moving with your feet, moving with your arms, moving in your chair, you’re still moving and so you’re dancing. They have an entire syllabus on upper body movement. They use integrated dancing throughout the whole program. We bring them in every year to do a workshop. This year Jody Coleman-Carder and her husband are sponsoring the program, so that opens the door for us to have opportunities for some children from Easter Seals to come over.”

Dancing Wheels Workshop Inspires Local Dancer

Oglebay Institute dance student Kelsei Weaver is in a wheelchair and was inspired by participating in a Dancing Wheels workshop. I talked to Kelsei, and I’ve never been more impressed by a young person. She’s been part of Oglebay Institute’s dance program for three years. I asked her how her dance career began, and she told me that she’s always loved performing. She’s a high school sophomore and participates in the choir, the marching band, and her school theater department.

Kelsei said, “The reason why I joined Oglebay Institute was because of Dancing Wheels. Everything I’ve ever wanted to do I’ve always had to fight to do. I’ve always had to approach people first and say, ‘Hey I’d be really interested in doing this.’ It was actually Miss Cheryl that approached me first and asked me if I wanted to dance here.”

Making Friends and Inspiring Others

“Miss Cheryl was willing to go with me right from the start. The first day I came in there with a group lesson, I was so scared because everybody always wonders and asks questions and they stare, but they never really ask, and you always wonder, what are the other girls going to say,” Kelsey said. “I was really nervous because I’d never had dance experience other than going to Dancing Wheels. The first time I walked in there she said, ‘This is Kelsei Weaver. She’s in a wheelchair, but she wants to dance, and she loves to dance, and if you don’t like it, there’s the door, you can go ahead and go out.’ Nobody had really ever said that. All the girls there are very sweet to me. They’re all really kind and I’ve made some great friends.”

Kelsei has been inspired by the Dancing Wheels Company. When she first saw their performances, she told her grandmother how much she wished she could do something like that. The next year, Miss Cheryl called her.

Everyone is Unique

“I think it’s really awesome and it’s really inspirational,” she said. “When you see other people doing it, it’s like, ‘I’m not alone.’ A lot of people that are disabled don’t have the opportunities that I do, and I think it’s not only good for us to see that we can do this but it’s good for other people too. When I dance, I interact with the other girls. I don’t just interact with other people in wheelchairs with disabilities. I think people today try to group us in one group. But just because I’m in a wheelchair doesn’t make me any different. And that’s something that I think Oglebay Institute really understands, and I’m really thankful for that.”

Each year, Kelsei has performed in “The Nutcracker.” She’s also danced in “Hansel and Gretel” and will soon be in “Beauty and the Beast.” Though she’s always focused on ballet, she has an upcoming hip hop performance in the recital.

“I’ve never been out of ballet or a lyrical dance,” she told me. “It’s really nice when your teachers can trust you enough to let you explore it and have fun with it.” She’s been working with hip hop instructor Arianne Wade in addition to Miss Cheryl.

I asked this amazing you woman where she sees herself in ten years. Will she still be dancing, I wondered. She gave me an answer that I now realize is textbook-Kelsei Weaver.

“I hope whatever I do, it’s something that inspires people. I just want to make people happy, and I want to bring awareness to people with disabilities. I love to dance, I love to sing, I love to perform. Maybe I’ll be on Broadway someday.”

I guarantee she will.

Find Out More

For more information on the Dancing Wheels Workshop, visit Oglebay Institute online or call 304-242-7700.

Maple Sugaring Day: A Beloved OI Tradition

By Laura Jackson Roberts

Oglebay Institute stands on innovation and tradition. Every season, you’ll find both new classes and events as well as those you’ve come to enjoy for years. Of all the OI traditions I’ve participated in, none seem so beloved as the annual Maple Sugaring Day at Camp Russel in Oglebay Park. I didn’t discover the event until I was an adult, and by that time, friends had been attending for years. I see familiar faces every time I go.

My kids often begin their weekend in their pajamas, zombified by the screens on their tablets. Today, though, they’re up early and find a patch of mud in the parking lot before we’ve even locked the car. We’re in the first tour group this morning, and the woods are still quiet. Inside Camp Russel’s main building, the employees of Oglebay Institute Schrader Environmental Center welcome us. We can hear the breakfast preparations in the kitchen, and there’s a mini-Samara Shop set up with local craft and nature items for sale: books, mugs, jewelry, and a singing cardinal stuffed animal my younger son zeroes in on right away.

Take a Walk in the Woods

But it’s time for the tour, and our group meets outside for the introduction. We’ll be going through a series of stations on our walk this morning, and Schrader educator Robin Lee points us in the direction of our first stop, where we gather around a fire and learn the early history of maple sugaring. Native Americans knew the secret of the sweet sap long before Europeans arrived. They heated igneous rocks to boil the water out of the sap, leaving behind the maple syrup. Native Americans knew that the hard work of sap collection produced the best rewards.

Discover Pioneer Methods of Maple Sugaring

At our next stop, we meet a colonial man and his wife. He explains that Thomas Jefferson sent pioneers from Virginia to bring back the sugar maple tree to Monticello, thereby eliminating the need to buy sugar from the British. Pioneers learned to watch for the arrival of the yellow-bellied sapsucker as a harbinger of the season’s start. Alas, Virginia proved a poor climate for maple sugar production, and Thomas Jefferson had to eat his pancakes dry.

My first Maple Sugaring Day was a frigid one; this time, the March wind has blown in at a comfortable 65 degrees. This year is warm, the colonial man tells us, which isn’t a good thing for the sugar maples.

“Weather is the key,” he says, as his overworked wife kneels on the ground, in character, grumbling about her cast iron skillet duties. The kids sample bacon and sourdough bread cooked on the fire.

Learn About Sugar Maples

Next, we learn the botanical mechanics of the sugar maple tree, and the Schrader educators confirm that this weird, warm winter has adversely affected the sap. Our balmy February means that maple syrup does not runneth over this year. The hardworking chefs in the kitchen may have to supplement breakfast with syrup from another local farm. It takes 320 gallons of sugar maple sap to produce only one gallon of syrup.

Try Your Hand at Tapping Trees

At the tapping station, the kids, who have all been enjoying this morning in the woods whether they’ve been listening to the speakers (most children) or swashbuckling with sharp sticks (my children), get a chance to tap a tree themselves. A Schrader educator hands my older son an old-fashioned hand drill and a steel spile (the tap), and he practices on a stump. Every kid gets a turn to drill and pound and dirty their hands. This is why they’ve come to the woods, isn’t it? Whether my kids come home with knowledge or a deer skull they find in the woods (they will name it Bart), they’re having an experience out here. Maple Sugaring Day doesn’t judge.

As we walk through the woods back to Camp Russel, we pass a sugar maple grove. The trees are all tapped. I walk this path often in warmer months and rarely take note of the sugar maples I pass. In fact, I’m not sure I could pick one out of a deciduous tree lineup. We’re all surprised at how many of them grow along the trail. Steel buckets and plastic collection bags hang from each tree, and the Schrader folks tell us the season is about over. Time to gather that sap and make something delicious.

Watch Syrup Being Made and Eat Pancakes, Too!

The smell of pancakes and sausage wafts out over the lawn, but before we return to our waiting breakfast, we stop at the boiling station. Here, Hugh Hyre, owner of Misty Mountain Estate in Lewisville, Ohio, demonstrates the modern way of doing things. No hot rocks, no angry colonial wench tending to a cast iron pot. The sap is boiling nicely in a stainless steel evaporator as he takes us through the process.

I never find out exactly how it’s done, though, because Benjamin, my youngest, is starving and wanders off. I find him in the dining room, the first in line, holding up his plate as the ladies in the kitchen pile it with a stack of pancakes and two sausage links. By the time the rest of the family finds their way to the pancake line, Ben has scarfed his breakfast and fallen into a food coma, head on the sticky tablecloth.

I’d call Maple Sugaring Day a wrap.

Go & Do

Oglebay Institute’s Maple Sugaring Day 2018 is Saturday, March 17. Tours begin at 9am and continue every half hour with the last group leaving at 12:30pm. Make reservations in advance, the event typically sells out.  Find out more online or by calling 304-242-6855.