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Sandy Summers/DN
TOP: STACEY WONDER stretches at
the barre before beginning her
rehearsal. Wonder is the founder of
the Ballet Omaha’s group Wonder
Wheels. The group provides oppor
tunities for paraplegic dancers to
express themselves through modern
dance.
RIGHT: STACEY WONDER rehearses a
dance she will perform for a spring
performance at the Omaha
Community Playhouse.
Wonder Wheels takes
dance to unique level
By Liza Holtmeier
Senior Reporter
OMAHA - As the first few strains of
Bach cascade across the room, dancers fly in
from stage right, their wheels gliding across
the shiny gray dance floor.
With amazing speed and agility, they spin
and change directions. Their arms alternate
between manipulating their wheelchairs
around the stage and creating shapes repre
sentative of the music.
The dancers are associated with the Ballet
Omaha group Wonder Wheels. Together, they
are taking modern dance to a new level, a
level that includes wheelchairs.
Wonder Wheels, founded by Omaha resi
dent Stacey Wonder, provides dance classes
and performance opportunities for para
plegic dancers. Wonder, herself, teaches
weekly classes for children and young adults
while Omaha dance instructor Susan
Dickson-Matsunami teaches a monthly class
open to everyone. The dancers also rehearse
a repertoire, which they plan to perform in
the spring.
Wonder’s idea for Wonder Wheels origi
nated during her rehabilitation after an acci
dent in 1994 that left her paralyzed from the
waist down. Alegent Health Centers put her
in contact with the Cleveland Ballet group,
Dancing Wheels.
Wonder was inspired by Mary Verdi
Fletcher, a dancer with spina bifida who
founded Dancing Wheels in 1980.
“Everyone told her she would never be a
66
When we perform, grown
men cry. I can’t believe the
kind of response
wevehad... ”
Stacey Wonder
Wonder Wheels founder
dancer,” Wonder said. “Since then, she’s been
proving everyone wrong.”
Wonder reviewed videos of Dancing
Wheels’ performances and then decided to
approach Derrick Wilder, Ballet Omaha’s
managing director, with the hopes of starting
a similar group.
“She came wheeling into the office, and I
didn’t know what to say,” Wilder said. “We
watched a video together of wheelchair
dancers, and then I realized all the possibili
ties”
New movement
For their first project, Wilder choreo
graphed a duet for himself and Wonder called
“Keys to Imagination,” with music by Yanni.
“The theme is that the audience doesn’t
know who is disabled and who is not,” Wilder
».nruu.nUnFn .. ^ . . . . Sandy Summers/DN
STACEY WONDER adjusts her ballet slipper during a rehearsal Tuesday afternoon. Wonder said
her involvement with ballet has helped with her rehabilitation.
said. “When I was choreographing, the
movement just sort of flowed out of the body.
When we perform, grown men cry. I can’t
believe the kind of response we’ve had
because I didn’t choreograph it with that
intent.”
The duet premiered at Ballet Omaha in
November 1996. Since then, Wonder, Wilder
and, more recently, Dickson-Matsunami have
been working to expand their knowledge of
wheelchair dancing.
This summer, Wonder attended a summer
camp sponsored by the Cleveland Ballet.
Twenty-five sit-down dancers and 20 stand
up dancers attended the eight-day camp. The
dancers met every day for eight hours to
rehearse repertoire, practice technique and
<v
improvisation.
Wonder now incorporates the technique
she learned from the Dancing Wheels
dancers into her own classes.
“There’s a variety of skills you must
learn,” Wonder said. “We do a combination
of classical ballet and modern dance, but we
must also work on wheelchair mobility and
technique.”
Classes start with a warm-up emphasiz
ing cardiovascular health, flexibility and
strength. The dancers then move to longer
combinations emphasizing locomotive
movement. Finally, the dancers work on spa
tial orientation.
Please see WONDER on 13
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