Dancing Like the Stars

Fingers entwined with hers, he leads her around the floor, the music carrying them through steps and turns as they glide together in each other’s arms.

Never mind that he can’t walk. That doesn’t mean he can’t dance.

Matthew Clark joins thousands of others with disabilities throughout the world who move to music, in their wheelchairs. They waltz, foxtrot and tango with able-bodied partners (combi-style) and those in wheelchairs (duo-style); or in couples of four, six or eight (formation-style). Wheelchair dancing has even become a competitive sport.

It’s nothing new. Sweden hosted the first international competition in 1977. Though, so far, there’s been only one wheelchair dance competition in the United States (in Denver in 2003), the sport is gaining in popularity here thanks to revived interest in ballroom dancing in general. Just look at ABC’s megahit “Dancing with the Stars.”

One day, Clark hopes to compete. Says the 25-year-old Temple University film student, who was born paraplegic, “Dancing has been a part of my life since I was a toddler, bopping around to my parents’ Prince albums.”

Then in 2004, he saw a combi-style wheelchair dance performance by Melinda Kremer and Ray Leight, a paraplegic (from a 1991 car accident), founders of the American DanceWheels Foundation. The Philadelphia-based organization teaches American-style wheelchair ballroom and Latin dancing to people with disabilities and without. Clark started taking lessons, “and I was hooked.”

Wheelchair dancing adapts ballroom and Latin dance steps to wheels. “There are different ways I can push my chair to express the rhythms and characters of the different dances,” he continues. Clark always leads, as a man dancing American-style, which is more interdependent and expressive than the stricter international style, which requires the able-bodied partner, male or female, to lead.

Like any couple dancing, “certain moves and eye contact communicate to the woman how to follow,” explains Kremer. “There are lots of glides, turns and spins, and sharp, staccato thrusts, especially in powered chairs with Latin dancing.”

The seated dancer can pop a wheelie or lift the able-bodied partner into the air, further injecting the dance with emotion and spectacle.

Wheelchair dancing is “good physical exercise,” says Rubin Zakiryanov, an able-bodied dancer and founder of the New York City-based Wheelchair Dancesport USA, who teaches international-style. “You use muscles you never thought you had. You feel better about yourself, proud that you’re dancing. And you’re not homebound, but socializing with others. Too, competitions can take you all over the world.”

Vying in these events can only deepen one’s dance. Says Clark, “They’re good motivation to keep pushing yourself and make you even better at it.”

While international-style competitions held in Europe and Asia are recognized by the International Paralympic Committee, the American counterpart has yet to participate and U.S. competitions have been slow to take hold. But things here are changing.

“As baby boomers age, they’ll have more money — and disabilities,” says Kremer. “This is fueling a growing commercial interest in people with disabilities, in general, and in wheelchair dancing.”

Clark will be ready. He refuses to view his physical limitations as a barrier. “Dance is all about movement,” he says. “It focuses on what the body can do.”

For more information, visit these Web sites: www.americandancewheels.org; and www.wheelchairdancesportusa.org.