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Dancing Wheels @ Ohio Theatre 4/19 We went to see Dancing Wheels last Sunday. Like Verb’s concert at Cleveland Public Theater the previous evening, Cleveland choreographers figured prominently. In addition to Lisa K Lock and Mark Tomasic who choreographed work for both Dancing Wheels and Verb, the Dancing Wheels concert included Sweet Radio Radicals, a more than nice little piece by Diane McIntyre, who’s arguably the best choreographer ever to come out of Cleveland.

Sweet Radio Radicals, which Dancing Wheels premiered about this time last year, is based on the simplest of premises. 5 women, 2 of whom happen to be in wheelchairs, are listening to music on the radio -- just sitting around -- when suddenly they break out in great big rambunctious steps from way down home and way back when. McIntyre has staged the dance with the women turned in toward the radio, initially with their backs to the audience. It’s about people dancing for themselves and each other rather than an audience. The effect is not exactly humorous – we don’t recall the audience or ourselves actually laughing. It’s more like a grin of recognition; yep, we’ve done that, guilty as charged: Got carried away. And here, a whole lot more.

Lock choreographed 2 pieces for this Dancing Wheels concert. In Walls of Glass hands pressed flat against an imaginary wall make the only specific reference to problems of access. The rest of the dance is serene acceptance, calm music by Gustav Mahler, beautiful white costumes by Alexandra Underhill. The diverse group of 9 dancers -- in wheel chairs and ‘stand-ups,’ black, white, and Asian -- all doing the same choreography seem to us to contemplate the barriers – or is the dance itself a response to walls of glass?

Walls of Glass includes a daring innovation in other-abled dance. As the PR has it, Lock initiated work on “a device that will enable Ms. Verdi-Fletcher (Founding Artistic Director of Dancing Wheels) to stand and dance with her fellow non-disabled dance partners; crafted by designer Larry Coleman with added support from Jordan Lowell and costumed by Alexandra Underhill,” said device looks rather like a dress form on wheels with tiny Verdi Fletcher perched on top. Precarious as the thing looks, it does put the wheelchair dancer at eye level with ‘stand-ups’ and the audience responded with quiet acceptance.

Lock also performed a solo, Silent Prayer for Drowning Fish. Like some of her other solos, it explored the considerable possibilities of her ballet-trained body interacting with a set by Coleman. If one is expecting her to perform discernable steps, well, she doesn’t. But she can be absolutely riveting doing languorous extensions of her limber lengthy limbs.

The concert was a performance of the school as well as the company, so families of those children made up a large portion of the unfortunately rather sparse audience. The students were wheelchair dancers and ‘stand-ups,’ all intent on the hip-hop choreography provided for them by their teacher, Kristen Stilwell, and company member Franklin Polk. Their families thought the kids were terrific and we got a kick out of them, too.

Tomasic, until recently a mainstay of Cleveland’s dance community, choreographed a solo for Verdi-Fletcher, La Vie en Rose. Rather than describe the choreography or the performance as we usually do, we found ourselves trying to define Verdi-Fletcher’s contribution apart from her dancing.

She’s arguably the first to come up with the idea of wheelchair dance, and Dancing Wheels is still one of very few such companies. And wheelchair dance seems like a good idea to us, even though we have a sense of untapped potential.

Our sense is that Verdi-Fletcher is committed to performing as long as possible, but even if she never went on stage again after today, her abilities as a fund-raiser and booking agent have kept Dancing Wheels rolling for 28 years, providing opportunities for wheelchair dancers, ‘stand-ups,’ choreographers and audiences - a considerable contribution.

Dancing Wheels performed at the Ohio Theater Saturday, April 18 & Sunday, April 19.

From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas vicnelsaATearthlink.net

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