DANCERS: STAND-UP & SIT-DOWN

Joining the Cleveland Dancing Wheels was a challenge for choreographer Sabatino Verlezzo, who had his own dance company in New York at the time and had been a soloist with the pioneering May O'Donnell Dance Company. The challenge he happily accepted was to choreograph dances for people who dance sitting down.

"When I saw what the possibilities were with a wheelchair dancer, for somebody interested in choreography it was like a treasure chest," he says. Here were new ways to glide, new ways to turn.

The Cleveland Dancing Wheels is one of three or four dance companies in the country to employ dancers who have disabilities and the first to align with a major ballet company, the Cleveland Ballet. Three of the eight members of the company are in wheelchairs.

The Cleveland Dancing Wheels will lead master classes today and Friday at Southeast Missouri State University. The troupe will perform at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Show Me Center.

That performance will include a dance choreographed by Verlezza for local dancers, some of whom have disabilities and some of whom don't.

Verlezza is co-artistic director of the dance troupe, which often tours with disabled actor Christopher Reeve. His co-director is Mary Verdi-Fletcher, who founded the dance company in 1980. Verdi-Fletcher was born with spina bifida and is the Wheels' principal dancer.

The limitations imposed on people in wheelchair interest Verlezza.

"Instead of working with 17 colors I was forced to work with less. Fewer possibilities forces one to dig deeper to try and compose something that speaks in an artful way," he says.

Saturday's program will begin with "Koto Vivaldi," a dance Verlezza calls a "white ballet." The dance has no story line but celebrates the beauty of movement. Vivaldi's music is performed on a Japanese stringed instrument called a koto.

"It's like Western music meeting Eastern instruments, and stand-up dancers meeting sit-down dancers," Verlezza says.

"Egress" uses the music of both Mike Oldfield and Beethoven, and Bruce Springsteen can be heard accompanying "Chicken Lips."

Verlezza and his wife, Associate Artistic Director Barbara Allegra Verlezza, dance some of the numbers.

Some are choreographed for all sit-down dancers, some for all stand-up dancers and some for both. "I try to find music and a theme that is for people dancing, not just ballerinas or mythical creatures," Verlezza says.

The Cleveland Dancing Wheels are all about the inclusion and integration of all people. "We train together, we perform together," Verlezza says. "There's an equality. We celebrate our differences while learning from each other."

They also are a reminder that "you can do anything," Verlezza says. "You can be a dancer if you sit in a wheelchair or you can be a physicist in a wheelchair."

In workshops and classes, the Dancing Wheels sometimes work with quadriplegic or with people on skateboards and crutches. "It's a real task to have an inclusionary kind of training," he said. "A joy stick is very powerful."

The limitations create new possibilities, Verlezza says. "Obviously, wheelchair dancers can't jump. But I have some who are trying to. And I have stand-up dancers who are trying to simulate a beautiful glide."