As she glided across the floor — her straight back and with perfect posture — it was clear to onlookers in the L.A. Pittenger Student Center Ballroom that Bridget Dies is a dancer at heart.
"This is the most fun that I have had since I could dance on my own two feet," the senior fashion merchandising major said.
Although her feet can no longer carry her across the floor, with the help of people like Melinda Kremer, co-founder of American DanceWheels, Dies has found a new way to dance in a wheelchair.
Kremer came to Ball State University on Thursday evening to teach a quick course on American Style Wheelchair Latin and Ballroom Dance to community members.
A performer herself, ballroom dance holds a special place in Kremer's heart; her daughter, a dancer before a disease affected her ability to walk, died in 2007 and is the inspiration for American DanceWheels.
"For me the dancing creates a connection between the able bodied and the disabled world and you don't have to say a word," Kremer said. "You just have to watch two people dance."
Everyone present at the event was encouraged to participate and able-bodied people were even encouraged to take turns dancing in a wheelchair.
"I think that with someone is disabled at birth or they become disabled through and accident or disorder of some kind, this often is very hard to get people to understand that you are the same person and that you are the same as everyone else," Kremer said.
While wheelchair ballroom dancing is a paraplegic sport across Europe and Asia, an American Style had not been developed until Kremer and her wheelchair-using dance partner Ray Leight developed one. Together, the two won the first ever wheelchair dance competition and created the American DanceWheels Foundation.
"Wheelchair ballroom dancing is still very new here," Kremer said. "And we're hoping places like Ball State University will be interested enough in what we do that they will bring it here."
Dies said she hopes one day wheelchair dancing will play a big part at Ball State. She said working with professionals brought her back to when she started learning how to dance.
"I never realized how much it was bugging me not to dance," she said. "Being able to dance again and not being in immense pain is just a huge weight lifted off my shoulders that I didn't even know was there."
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