DISABLED TO PRESENT DANCE OF NEW KIND

Watching members of the Cleveland Dancing Wheels rehearse with local dancers is almost like seeing a new art form being born.

Jennifer Friedrich, who has cerebral palsy, moves haltingly to Co-Artistic Director Sabatino Verlezza's instructions to all the dancers: "Take your hat off. Big Bird."

Jim Pelfrey is visually impaired and tenderly holds Deborah Stuart, a faculty member in the department of health and leisure at Southeast Missouri State University, as she turns in a pas de deux.

Miki Gudermuth, the executive director of the SEMO Alliance for Disability Independence, spins her wheelchair about, trying to match the gracefulness of Cleveland Dancing Wheels Co-Artistic Director Mary Verdi-Fletcher.

Saturday's performance by the Cleveland Dancing Wheels will offer sights not many people in the region have had a chance to see before: People with and without disabilities in a dance performance together. The show will begin at 6 p.m. at the Show Me Center.

Verlezza and Verdi-Fletcher rehearsed Thursday night with 12 local dancers -- some disabled, some not -- who will perform a number just before intermission Saturday.

Verlezza's experience in helping people who have movement limitations is obvious. "Take a lunge, Jennifer," he instructs. "It'll give you a wider base."

Friedrich has had many operations on her legs just to allow her to walk. She's dancing now.

To teach inexperienced dancers quickly, the instructors use images instead of ballet terms. "Paint the front," Verlezza says. "Go down and scoop away."

Stuart, who is not disabled, and Pelfrey communicate verbally and through the exchange of energy when they move body-to-body.

Verlezza does not coddle these amateurs. "This is not recreation. People are buying tickets," he intones when weariness and mistakes provoke some giggling among the dancers.

But he teases when someone forgets a step. "That's OK. Disabilities come in many forms."

Halfway through the rehearsal, the dancers have been moving solely to the rhythm of Verlezza's voice. Then Dance Program director Dr. Marc Strauss pushes the button that plays the sonorous cello music that will accompany them, and the dance suddenly begins to take shape.

The story of how the Cleveland Dancing Wheels were born sounds like a movie script. Verdi-Fletcher, who was born with spina bifida, grew up in a home where she was encouraged to dance by her dancer mother and musician father. "As a child I always dreamed of being a dancer," she said.

In her 20s, she and a friend entered a dance contest without telling anyone that one of the members of the couple had a disability. When they went on the floor, "a hush went over the audience," she recalls.

But then they danced. "People went crazy," Verdi-Fletcher said. "We got a standing ovation."

Soon they were performing 72 shows a year. But that was mostly social dancing, and Verdi-Fletcher wanted to take her dancing to a more formal level. In 1990, she associated with the Cleveland Ballet. Now the Cleveland Dancing Wheels have a developmental school that trains children.

Verdi-Fletcher's dream has come true. "What was once a dream for me is commonplace now," she says.