Charlotte, Chicago youth dancers join forces in film about being seen for who they are
On an early morning in July, nine youth dancers from Chicago’s DanceOn and 16 from Charlotte’s A Chance to Dance groups met outside Star Struck Dance Studio in Denver, North Carolina.
They had 24 hours to rehearse a choreographed piece and film a documentary, “A Chance to DanceOn.”
The meeting was a result of a late-night Facebook message sent in 2018 by Greg Long in Chicago to Kim Smith in Charlotte. Long had seen Smith’s A Chance to Dance organization online and wanted to learn more about the dance program for youth and adults with disabilities.
Long founded DanceOn, a nonprofit in Chicago, when his 13-year-old son, Jimmy Long, was bullied after performing in a dance show.
Now, DanceOn raises awareness about bullying, encourages boys to dance and supports youth in need by covering the costs of dance class fees and awarding college scholarships. It also produces concept videos, which are short, informational films, about bullying and inclusion.
Over the next year, Long and Smith hatched a plan: Get the dancers together and make a video about respect and being seen. COVID-19 held up their plans for a year, but last summer, vans loaded with DanceOn dancers, a crew and a choreographer drove 500 miles to meet up with A Chance to Dance dancers.
“A Chance to DanceOn” will premiere in Charlotte on Jan. 8 at Ayrsley Grand Cinema to a sold-out crowd.
The nearly two-hour documentary, produced by Chicago-based producer and Emmy Award-winning editor Richard Hemmingway, features 25 dancers from A Chance to Dance and DanceOn.
In addition to pre- and post-film interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, the groups dance to “You Will Be Found” from Broadway’s “Dear Evan Hansen.” The documentary will hit the festival circuit later in 2022.
“This film is not about this journey to do a collaboration,” Hemmingway said. “It’s not even about dance. Dance is just the vehicle these kids use to communicate.”
Learning the steps
Chicago-based choreographer Katie Truex created 17 videos to help A Chance to Dance dancers learn the steps and movements ahead of the July meeting.
Smith sent photographs of her dancers along with their arm and leg abilities, dance strengths and what kind of support each dancer would need. Truex used this information to develop the choreography.
A Chance to Dance dancers learned the routine on their own for “You Will Be Found” in three three-hour rehearsals.
“When I first saw these, I thought, ‘How are we going to pull these off?’ ” Smith said. “They (A Chance to Dance dancers) are such visual, hands-on learners. We had nine hours to learn 17 different motifs.”
Chance to Dance dancer Ava Rose Wright, who is legally blind, listened to the Zoom recordings to learn the choreographed steps. The ninth grader at Sun Valley High School in Monroe joined A Chance to Dance in 2016; it was her first time being a part of a dance program.
Wright was born with closed-lip schizencephaly (cleft in her brain), septo opticdysplasia (legally blind) and left side hemiparesis (partial paralysis).
“Since I had practiced for a month and a half, I’d been doing pretty good,” said Wright, 14. “I felt confident in myself to where I felt like I could do it.”
DanceOn members arrived just in time for breakfast.
Rather than sitting apart from the A Chance to Dance group, they formed small groups. DanceOn members already knew everyone’s name from the information sent beforehand.
“They took to us like a duck in water,” Wright said of the DanceOn members. “They were open to our differences. They accepted that some of us might not be able to balance, some of us might not be able to stand up.”
‘Open minds and open hearts’
Smith opened A Chance to Dance in 2015 after her 5-year-old daughter, Reagan Smith, who has autism, couldn’t find a dance studio able to meet her needs. Smith has since grown the program to include 70 youth with various disabilities in two recreational classes and four competitive classes with the help of 25 volunteers.
Classes operate in a studio in Miss Donna’s School of Dance in Charlotte. The dancers compete on regional and national levels and have attended the World Dance Championship three times. Yet Smith worried about how her dancers would be treated by the DanceOn dancers.
“I am super protective of these kids and this program,” Smith said. “I was worried they’d come in with this mindset of, ‘We’re going to bring these nine talented dancers to Charlotte and they’re going to help the special needs kids.’ I had that fear in the back of my mind.”
But as it turned out, it was the opposite, she said. When the dancers arrived from Chicago, they saw Emma Bowie, a dancer from A Chance to Dance, posing for a photo shoot and asked if they could join in. The fact that the dancer was in a water fountain didn’t stop them.
Smith’s anxiety disappeared. She knew her dancers were being seen as people — as other dancers.
“In that moment, they saw her,” Smith said. “I saw them jump in with her, the pure joy on their faces and the joy on Emma’s face. Everybody saw each other as dancers. It was like nine kids (from DanceOn) came in with open minds and open hearts.”
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This story was originally published December 28, 2021 at 6:15 AM.