Dance for All Abilities
By Ella Kim, DWC Blog Contributor
For an artform with a long history of exclusivity, accessibility can be a difficult topic for many dance studios. Counter to traditions of gatekeeping, elitist training, and a hyper fixation on perfection, local studio Issaquah Dance Theater (IDT) offers a dance class tailored for neurodivergent and physically disabled students. The Best of My Abilities (BOMA) is an inclusive dance program founded by dancer and paraeducator, Emmy Fansler.
IDT has provided these dance classes since 2016. Fansler describes the class as being open to any and every one regardless of their mobility. When discussing over FaceTime who can be a BOMA dancer, she warmly recalled working with students in wheelchairs and explained, “if I can’t figure out a way to make it work for everybody, that’s on me.”
Photo by Hailey Waters
BOMA introduces students to a variety of dance styles, focusing primarily on encouraging movement and relationship building. Dance becomes a setting from which students can learn to help each other, trust each other, and trust themselves. By making the joy of dance accessible, the class also spreads the life skills dance teaches to students. Movements become obstacles the dancers learn to approach together.
The classes normally have a very flexible structure, often tailored to the particular group of dancers in each class. Building relationships between dancers is a large focus of the program. Fansler often pairs dancers who can physically support another person with dancers who need support. They move across the studio holding hands or helping guide each other around in turns.
The COVID-19 virus created huge challenges for dance studios, and IDT is no exception. On March 13th, Washington state governor, Jay Inslee, closed all schools, prompting the studio to move classes to a virtual format. Washington has continued to have strict restrictions surrounding COVID-19 safety. The state is currently working towards reopening, allowing for heavily regulated gatherings, so IDT hosts some of its classes in a hybrid in person and online format. BOMA classes have remained completely virtual since March 2020 for the safety of its participants.
For BOMA, this means a more consistent structure for each class. They begin with a guided warm up based within dance movements, move into a stretch sequence, and finish with putting together a dance routine. Instead of using touch to support each other through movements, dancers are modifying movements individually (for example changing a choreographed turn into a sway of the body and arms). The dancers are currently exploring salsa, using salsa footwork to inspire the warm up and listening to salsa music throughout the class.
“A lot of times dance is seen as this ridiculously exclusive world, really what you need is a body and a space.”
The benefits of BOMA are closely related to the successes seen in Dance Movement Therapy (DMT), and recent research points to dance having a positive impact on people with Autism. A study led by Malin Hildebrandt (professor at the University of Heidelberg in Germany), published in 2016, explains how dance can support the embodiment approach to managing negative symptoms caused by Autism.
The embodiment approach is a new thought process guiding some research on Autism. It breaks from the traditional focus on the mind’s impact on the body. Hildebrandt explains embodiment as the belief that “our perception of the world, and thus also our interaction with it, is entirely mediated by our bodies”. This approach assumes the mind and body have a fundamentally reciprocal relationship. Dance is rooted in the cooperation of body and mind, making it a great activity to strengthen that relationship.
Emmy Fansler, BOMA Program Founder
Hildebrandt’s study recorded a reduction of negative symptoms in people with Autism after ten weekly sessions of manualized DMT. The sessions consisted of encouraging individuals to manipulate the quality of their movements, mirroring exercises (copying each other’s dancing) in pairs and groups, and verbal processing about how the dancing made participants feel. IDT’s BOMA classes are not certified DMT sessions; however, they contain many of the same elements, focusing on encouraging dancers to expand or manipulate their natural movements and facilitating dancing together in pairs and groups.
Hildebrandt found that the 2 symptoms most alleviated by dance therapy were anhedonia (inability to feel pleasure) and blunted affect (difficulty expressing emotions). This fits with the embodiment theory, “because the subtypes most affected by the intervention… are more closely related to diminished self-perception as the connection of bodily states to emotions.”
BOMA began as an independent project of Fansler when she lived in Kansas. She worked as an adaptive PE paraeducator, where she would invite her students from PE to her after school dance classes. When asked about the origin of BOMA, Fansler remarked with a laugh that she created an accidental dance studio.
Eventually, Fansler moved to Washington, bringing BOMA with her. “I keep the name wherever I’ve gone because it makes sense for your abilities in all ways”.
IDT’s Artistic Director and owner, Kevin Kaiser, also works to make dance education more accessible. When asked how the program came to IDT, Kaiser stated in an email that he had been seeking to create a program like BOMA, so “when I learned that Emmy has a passion and a very clear vision for this type of program it was an easy decision for me”.
BOMA welcomes other IDT students to volunteer in its classes. Current student at IDT, Hannah Jacobson, helped with some classes two years ago. When interviewed over FaceTime, Jacobson described her experience, “it wasn’t like I was giving directions… I would do the combo with them and it was like I was a part of the class”. In the couple of classes she assisted, Jacobson noticed, “a very family environment”.
One thing that really stuck with Jacobson from her time with BOMA is how the class worked on challenges together. Instead of pulling a dancer aside if a problem arises, Fansler brings the class together in a circle and they help the dancer through it. Jacobson remembered one class when a dancer’s vocal ticks were winding up another dancer. Jacobson recalled that, “we worked together to help them calm down. It was as a group. We collectively came back to a circle and talked for a couple minutes”. Her lasting impression of BOMA is that, “everyone works through everything together”.
A foundational goal of this program is to build relationships between students. By assisting each other to learn more challenging movements, the dancers learn to trust each other. Fansler works to facilitate a safe atmosphere where the dancers can trust, experiment, and grow. Fansler warmly recounted a former student who had an aversion to authority figures but was receptive to help from peers. The student would not let Fansler touch her but would hold hands with other dancers as she moved across the floor. Proud of the dancer’s growth throughout the program, Fansler shared that the dancer was even comfortable being lifted by other students by the end of the year.
Photo by Hailey Waters
Fansler’s accepting and creative approach to each dancer's challenges is a hallmark of the program. BOMA focuses on what the students are able to do, not their limitations. Fansler’s voice was full of care as she responded to being asked what the goal of BOMA was for the participants. “I want them to feel safe and like they belong, and I want them to celebrate the things they can do instead of [being] boxed in by what they are told they cannot”.
The BOMA class is included in the IDT’s annual recitals. The dancers work on their own piece throughout the year and perform it on stage in the spring.
This month, BOMA’s current class of six dancers will perform in IDT’s recital. Changing COVID-19 restrictions make the exact format of the show uncertain, but the class is already working on creating their piece.
By offering a dance class tailored to students with disabilities, IDT is opening the gate to dance education and breaking down the traditional barriers of who is considered a dancer. Fansler notes, “a lot of times dance is seen as this ridiculously exclusive world, really what you need is a body and a space.”
Ella Kim began dancing at 4 years old. She focused primarily in ballet until finding a love of modern and contemporary dance in high school. She is currently pursuing a BFA in Dance at George Mason University. On breaks from school, she's had the opportunity to dance as a guest artist for Trillium Dance Collective. Ella enjoys investigating different aspects of the dance world and is thankful to DWC for giving her a platform.