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Touching Lives with Wheelchair Dancing

Posted on November 4th, 2011 by Jillian Zacchia

Touching Lives with Wheelchair Dancing

For a dancer, injury is their greatest fear, but for the injured and disabled, Aubree Marchione believes their greatest hope is dance. Marchione has been teaching and participating in wheelchair ballroom for years, and is testament to its advantages, but recently she has decided to produce a documentary which showcases proven benefits of Wheelchair Dancing with the hope of spreading awareness and reaching out to countless more who are wheelchair bound.

“Wheelchair Dancing originated in Europe in the 60s and became very popular over there,” says Marchione, who explains that there are “two different types of Wheelchair Dancing -- Combi style, which is when a person without a disability dances with a person in a wheelchair, and Duos, which is when two people, both in wheelchairs, dance together.” 

Marchione has done her part in promoting Wheelchair Ballroom, her specialty within the Wheelchair Dancing field. On October 25th 2011, Aubree and her dance partner Nick Scott performed at the Jewish Foundation for Group Homes ‘Evening of Dancing with the Stars (DWTS),’ where the pair showcased their Wheelchair Ballroom skills in front of 2,000 people, including some of DWTS’ professionals and contestants, thanks to the non-profit organization that supports those with disabilities.

            “Dancing with Nick is inspirational,” says Marchione, “in a matter of years we’ve accomplished so much and spread so much awareness.” The wheelchair bodybuilder, Nick Scott, “is an icon in the fitness industry right now,” says the Wheelchair Ballroom expert. The two met at the Arnold Sports Festival where Marchione was hosting for 2BEntertainmnt, the production company producing the upcoming Wheelchair Dance documentary. She invited Scott to take dance lessons with her and says “he flies from Kansas every month to practice with me and do the choreography.”

            Together the pair has won first place in the Latin division for both the ‘Atlantic Coast Dancesport’ competition in Philadelphia in June 2010 and the ‘Heart of America Dancesport’ competition in Kansas in August 2010.

“In those competitions there were about 10 couples each,” admits the dancer, “but over in Europe we were the first couple to represent the United States ever in a world Wheelchair Dance championship.” Together they competed against 22 nations and over 200 couples in the ‘World Paralympic Wheelchair Dance Sport Championship’ in Germany in November 2010.

            Since then Marchione has put her talents to use by co-choreographing for the TLC special ‘The Girl with the Tiny Legs’ and in producing the award winning documentary “Perspective: the Nick Scott Story’ with 2BEntertainment. Now she’s combining her choreography and production skills for the upcoming documentary on Wheelchair Dancing’s benefits.

            The documentary will be focused around a course given by ‘American Dance Wheels,’ a non-profit organization that teaches both students and teachers like Marchione how to Wheelchair Ballroom dance. A group of veterans in California have invited the organization to give them a course for the month of January 2012, where they will show the effects of the program by conducting a study on the mental, physical and social benefits of the activity.  

“If they find positive results,” explains the choreographer, “it will open doors for Wheelchair Dancing to be a form of rehabilitation in rehab hospitals and health facilities instead of just a form of recreation.

“I’m very confident that they’re going to find positive results.” says the Wheelchair Ballroom enthusiast, “I’ve seen it over and over again with all my groups.”

Marchione goes on to list the physical, social and mental benefits of the activity.  In terms of physical benefits, she says “students have come to me and they couldn’t move quickly or lift their arms, and after a few months we’ve seen people get stronger in their core, in their arms and improve their posture.”

The activity also helps socially because “a lot of people who get hurt or aren’t used to being in a wheelchair get depressed and don’t want to go out of their house or see anyone. Wheelchair Ballroom is a way for these people to go out with their families and be part of society again. It integrates disabled people with able-bodied people and that’s really important.”

Lastly it helps mentally because “dancing helps you focus by learning the steps and leading or following your partner, and dancing in general is proven to help Alzheimer’s and other mental diseases.”

This study will help give credibility to these claims, but to this dancer, “it’s already been proven; we’ve seen it with our own eyes.”

Hoping that the public will see it for their own eyes as well, Aubree admits that in order to reach people across North America she needs to raise funds. Collecting money now at  www.indiegogo.com/2bentertainment she’s optimistic, focusing not on the financial aspects of production but on the need to raise awareness for the sake of spreading help and hope.

“The documentary is going to educate people about what wheelchair ballroom is and it’s going to get dance teachers interested in teaching this form of dance in their schools.” Right now there is a limit to who can learn depending on where they live. American Dance Wheels Foundation (www.americandancewheels.org), which is the organization associated with the documentary, has multiple facilities throughout the United States and several locations in Canada and the UK, but Marchione says she often gets calls from people asking whether she knows a teacher in their area and sadly, she doesn’t.

“We want to spread it out and we want it to be available,” she says.

Teaching or taking a Wheelchair Ballroom course is inexplicably rewarding and this choreographer recounts a touching story of a wedding couple she instructed last month.

“They said they wanted to try dancing, but the groom got hurt in an accident and they weren’t sure how the dance would turn out. When they started taking lessons the bride said to me ‘I can’t believe we’re actually dancing for our wedding, this is what I always wanted. I always wanted to feel like a princess and dance, and it’s happening.’”

After videotaping their last lesson together with Marchione, she says “I played back the video for them and they both started crying.”

In order to touch more lives and have more stories like this, the documentary is being made, to “spread awareness and let people know that there is a different kind of rehab that will be available, and that wheelchair ballroom is out there as a form of recreation that does help people.” 

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