“You often feel tired, not because you’ve done too much, but because you’ve done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
Walking into the studio, Eve came down the hall to greet me, followed by her gentle giant service dog, Finn, a large black and white Great Dane, who gave me a sniff and I melted. Immediately, Eve sparked a joy in the atmosphere, and I was full of happiness and excitement to be with her. Eve’s mom and dance teacher joined us as we picked out a few costumes for our photoshoot and talked about her journey as a teenage wheelchair dancer. Eve has been dancing since she was 4 years old, and she trains year round in ballet, hip hop, lyrical (her favorite) and ballroom at Midwest Dance Center and Fred Astaire Dance Studio, both in Brookfield Wisconsin. Starting this fall, Eve is joining the performance company at Midwest Dance Center for the first time and she also hopes to compete in ballroom as well.
Eve was born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta type XV, a disorder that is characterized by recurrent bone fractures, bone deformity, and significant reduction of bone density. Since January of 2017, Finn, her 6 year old service dog has been by her side in and out of the dance studio and stage. Finn was trained by Service Dog Project where they train Great Danes as mobility dogs. Finn aids Eve in transfers to and from her wheel chair, navigating accessibility barriers like stairs, and he helps her to work on her walking skills. During dance class, Finn sits and watches from the sidelines, but he never takes his eyes off of her.
I asked Eve what boundaries she faces as a dancer in a wheelchair, and this is what she had to say. “Having to adapt moves in a wheelchair myself without much direction and learning more advance dancing in a wheelchair has been limited by lack of available instruction specific to wheelchair dancing. Some instructors seemed to be intimidated by advancing me either because of choreography challenges or concern of injury which is unavoidable with my disorder and has almost never been caused by actual dancing. Plus, it is not something that would keep me from dancing and pushing myself anyway. This summer I broke my arm and couldn’t dance for a while so I finally ventured into choreographing something small, it really just developed out of boredom, but turned out pretty good.”
After chatting, we put the music on and Eve started dancing. She moved so beautifully around the studio. Her face and body expressed her joy at a higher level than I could ever imagine. This young lady has found her passion and is truly great at it. Finn found his place on the floor in the dance studio and watched Eve gracefully move across the floor. I am so grateful to have been invited into her dance space to document Eve. We spent about an hour together, but I will never forget that hour.
Eve hopes to someday make a living dancing. She also hopes that wheelchair/integrative dancing becomes more mainstream in the US with more instruction available to everyone.
For more inspiration from this amazing pair, follow them at Chronicles of Eve and Finn on Facebook and Instagram.
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