Ballet for special children

Ballet is the material of which dreams are made: the epitome of precision, grace and beauty. What girl hasn’t dreamed of going on stage? Ten-year-old Keren Rak-Mehler dreamed of being a dancer, she told us, talking through her computer.

“I love dancing with my walker and learning new ballet moves,” she said.

Keren has tetraplegic cerebral palsy.

“It was too intimidating for all the places I asked about dance programs: a, the wheelchair, b, the fact that it wasn’t verbal,” her mother, Iris Mehler, said. “They could not cope with the situation.”

Then Iris found a place that could handle the situation, where children with disabilities of any kind could wear tutus and top hats and dance.

For the past four years, the New York City Ballet has been offering a series of workshops for youth with disabilities. Brothers are also welcome.

“Five minutes before class, it’s a total carnage, but there’s actually a method to the madness that’s going on,” said Dr. Joseph Dutkowsky, who specializes in cerebral palsy.

The program came about when a mother of a child with cerebral palsy wrote the New York City Ballet and asked if they had ever done workshops for children with disabilities. They didn’t have it.

Ballet’s Meghan Gentile contacted Dr. Dutkowsky to help him design this program.

The key, Gentile said, was “not to make this a therapy session, just to give them the experience of moving into a studio with live music, with other dancers.”

Doctor’s orders: no wheelchairs and no straps.

“A mother came after our first class and said,‘ I looked and saw my daughter’s wheelchair, and she wasn’t going! ’” Dr. Dutkowsky said.

“It makes me cry,” said correspondent Lesley Stahl.

“It makes me smile!”

Teachers are New York City Ballet dancers, as is soloist Ashley Laracey. “I left my first workshop here feeling like I had to be a part of these kids’ lives, ”he said.

Iris Mehler told Stahl: “You see the two extremes: the people with the deepest control over their movements, the New York City Ballet dancers who come here to teach our children that they have no control, sometimes, over the “Muscles of his body. There’s something really touching about that. It’s really touching. I’m grateful.”

Laracey said, “I broke my fifth metatarsal on stage in a performance of ‘Firebird.’ we talked and we said it would be great for the kids to see that even I sometimes have disabilities, and that we can all dance and do the best we can. ”

Russell Janzen, one of Ballet’s lead dancers, said: “We always create combinations that are a lot of fun. These workshops really speak to the joy that dance brings.”

Beatrix Quidort was a micro-preemie: one pound, five ounces at birth. At the age of three, Beatrix was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, which mainly affects the muscles.

Cognitively, say her parents, Theron and Caroline, she’s “fantastic … on average or above.”

“Our mission is to make her feel strong and independent, and capable enough not to be a big problem for her,” Theron said.

They live in Binghamton, New York, a three-and-a-half hour drive from Manhattan.

“That’s a lot of driving,” Stahl said.

“It is,” Caroline said. “It’s a pleasure to be able to talk to another parent and say, ‘Oh, your son is doing a good job’ or ‘Look how handsome they are’ and connect with other people and other children.”

One of these other children is five-year-old Ella Parsons, also of cerebral palsy, also from Binghamton. Ella’s mother, Alyson, and her parents, Joe and Janice, made the long journey to see Ella dance.

Stahl asked his mother, Alyson, “Do you think she feels a little different from the other kids?”

“Yes. I think so. I’m pretty sure I do,” he replied. “She loves to dance.”

“And she hears when she’s there that she’s a dancer?”

“I think so, yes!”

Joe said, “Whatever her feelings are inside her, she comes out when she turns around and things like that.”

Stahl asked, “Tell me the truth. Did he ever make you cry?”

“Oh yeah, yeah, Joe and I both,” Janice said. “We’re very proud to see her out there.”

Stahl said, “It’s almost like there’s karma here. Because there’s another couple from the same city you’re in, and these girls are about the same age. Someone is giving you a present here.”

“Yeah, I hope we can encourage that,” Alyson said.

While Stahl was interviewing her parents, the two Binghamton girls had already met and were dancing together in the next room.

“If you have tutus and you’re playing music, they’ll dance,” Dr. Dutkowsky said.

“Like any other child!” Gentil added.

Dr. Dutkowsky sat with a child on his lap, making the movements for him. “In the middle of that lesson, my mother turned to me and said, ‘She looks very happy, she’s having a lot of fun. Would you mind if I sat down?’ And I said, “It would be wonderful.” Because that was part of the goal, it’s for the parents to be able to sit there and watch, just like in a Little League game. “

On the last Saturday of the workshops, the children joined hundreds of other children to see the New York City Ballet dancers perform … and to dream.

Stahl said, “Looking at your daughter and all the other kids, it’s overwhelming. And you can hardly explain what that emotion is, because it’s not sad.”

“No,” Caroline Quidort said. “I think it’s a joy.”

For more information:

• New York City Ballet Access Programs
• Dr. Joseph Dutkowsky
• “Perfectly Human” by Dr. Joseph Dutkowsky, available in Trade Paperback and eBook formats via Amazon

• Our thanks to producer Alexandra Dean and Reframed Pictures for allowing us to use some photos from her inspirational video, “From Leg Braces to Ballet”

Story produced by Mary Lou Teel.

In:
• cerebral palsy