Dance has the power to warm and move the heart – A reflection from Crystal Chan
An important aspect of inclusion is empathy. When we are able to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, it allows us to create bonds of trust, it gives us insights into what others may be feeling or thinking, and it helps us understand how or why others are reacting to situations. In the interview below, Crystal Chan, Occupational Therapist who volunteered with The Dance Ability Movement for five years, shows how EMPATHY, combined with her passion for dance and occupational therapy, helped her better support Hayley, one of our dancers from Bradford, during the Take the Lead Workshop. If you [...]
#KeepDancingChallenge – Week 8: Join us in celebrating all of the mom figures of our wonderful community!
This week’s video is a special one! In honour of Mother’s Day, we are celebrating all of the mom figures of our wonderful community. We were blown away by the energy and talent of everyone who participated in this special choreography! Every look, every move and every smile filled our hearts with joy and reminded us of how dance can connect us in such a beautiful way! A big thank you to all moms who joined our dancers and staff in this week’s video. A huge shout out to Jade and Mallory’s mom, who is our DAM’s number one fan [...]
Week 7 of our #KeepDancingChallenge – What do you do when you miss your friends?
What do you do when you miss your friends? We DANCE! On this week’s #KeepDancingChallenge video, we had a lot of fun dancing with some of our friends from the Special Friends Network! A heartfelt thank you to Elaine Cray from Special Friends Network for organizing the virtual dance party and to everybody who participated in this week’s video! Check it out on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/6sxRSmU321E How about practising this choreography at home and throwing a virtual dance party with your friends?
Congratulations to Kaily Bowen, our Volunteer of the Month for April!
This is Kaily's first year volunteering with us at our Bradford location at Elite Dance Corps and we have seen in her the true spirit of connection and kindness. Kaily has been consistently dedicated to showing up for our Kids Class and has been a great source of calm for the group! Although Kaily's dancing buddy wasn't always in class, she was always willing to jump in to help with other dancers and managing the group dynamics. Kaily has continued to be a constant presence in our virtual world of dance classes, she continues to show up for our online classes, bringing [...]
Believe in yourself, try new things and thrive!
From left to right: Nancy from National Ballet School, Hayley and Crystal Every year, Canada's National Ballet School runs the Take the Lead workshop in Toronto. This year, we were thrilled to have Hayley, one of our dancers from Bradford, among the forty young women from across Canada who attended the workshop. It was an inspiring weekend where participants learned how to make a positive impact on their communities through the arts. As it would be a busy 4-day workshop and we wanted Hayley to make the most of it, we invited Crystal Chan, who is an OT [...]
Connecting through dance during a pandemic – by Chiara Mabrucco
This week, Miss Chiara, our Richmond Hill teacher, is sharing with us how dance has impacted her during these changing times. We hope her reflections inspire you to stay positive, keep moving and take control of the things you can! When this pandemic started getting serious, one of my first thoughts was “how will the special needs community I work with be affected by this massive change”? The change of routine, added stress to families who are losing therapies and school, not to mention the increase in challenging behaviour that was surely to be a result of having kids remain [...]