Classes Offer Special-Needs Children A Chance to Be Lord of the Dance

Two girls in tutus and three boys in gym clothes ran screaming across an imaginary bridge at the Dawn Crafton Dance Center in Gaithersburg to the old favorite "Going on a Bear Hunt."

"You can't go over it. You can't go under it," they chanted along with instructor Erica Wines, 25, of Silver Spring. "It's a bear. . . . AHHHHH!"

The adventure through the woods was just the beginning for the children, who are the first to participate in a class designed for autistic and special-needs children. Throughout the class, they galloped like horses, crawled like spiders, leaped like frogs, hopped like rabbits, stalked like roaring lions, waddled like ducks and buzzed like stinging bees.

"Go dance class!" Wines said as the children put their hands together in a circle after one performance.

"It's really hard to find classes that will accommodate" special-needs children and treat them like other kids, said Caroline Kelly, a dance center board member. "It's big not to be singled out."

Kelly and other members of Dance Partners International, a performing arts troupe, helped start the class for autistic children and another class for deaf and hard-of-hearing children that debuted at the center on Airpark Road this summer.

"We grew up dancing," said Erin Kelly, 25, who co-teaches both classes. "Everyone on the board is a dancer, has a dancer."

When the Dawn Crafton center was approached by Dance Partners, the classes were viewed as "kind of an opportunity to share that with kids who wouldn't have an opportunity."

Erin Kelly, who has a deaf brother and knows American Sign Language, works full time at the dance center. The summer class was a hit, she said, so she scheduled another to start in September, but not enough students enrolled. Many of this summer's students attend the Kendall Demonstration Elementary School for the Deaf at Gallaudet University in the District. Their school bus does not return to Montgomery County in time for an afternoon class, she said.

The class included children with autism; attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder; and Williams syndrome, a rare chromosomal disorder that can affect brain development and cause physical problems, the teachers said. But although the students' needs might be different, many of the movements were the same.

"With them, I do more of a creative movement, like acting out animals or whatever theme we have," Wines said, recalling this summer's jungle motif. "In a regular dance class, their minds might start to wander more."

Wines also teaches physical education classes at Kingsbury Day School in the District, which serves children with learning disabilities. She said she keeps music to a minimum to avoid distractions and makes sure there is never a dull moment.

During a recent class at the Gaithersburg center, the young dancers stretched their muscles and moved their bodies as they practiced being frogs, leaping over beanbags, knees out, then parking on their lily pads to catch roving flies with their tongues. Scarves in each hand, they practiced "levels," as soaring birds, flying up high, flying down low.

"Caw! Caw!" Spencer Hoffman, 7, said as he imitated an eagle, soaring in a circle, arms out. Coming to a stop in his best bird pose, he balanced on one leg, wings out, and put on his most vicious, fierce and brave face.