Homecoming week shifted its attention to diversity with incorporating a show comprised of dancers with and without disabilities.
Dancing Wheels, a professional integrated dance company from Cleveland, gave a free performance and reception at the Wexner Performance Space yesterday.
Jen Hertzfeld, a counselor in the Office of Disability Services and part of the Homecoming Diversity Subcommittee said that the importance of the performance was to, “inform (all) students about accessibility in the arts.”
Dancing Wheels, founded in 1980 by Mary Verdi-Fletcher, has educated and entertained audiences around the world through performance and lectures, community classes or workshops, residencies and mainstage concerts.
Dancers Tracy Pattison, David Nau and Mark Tomasic performed five dances and in between each dance talked about the philosophy of Dancing Wheels.
According to Tomasic, the performance and lecture allows visually and hearing impaired people to become more interested in the performing arts.
At each show, there is an interactive segment where the audience participates in the performance. At the end, there is a question and answer period open for audience members who have questions for the performers.
“The performance is entertaining and informative at the same time,” Tomasic said.
October is also Disability Employment Awareness Month and OSU in turn will be focusing on the disabled with performances, workshops and lectures designed to enhance and entertain students, faculty, staff and the public about opportunities for people with disabilities.
On Oct. 17, Professor Ruth Colker, Heck Faust Memorial Chair in Constitutional Law at the Moritz College of Law at OSU, will speak in honor of the University Distinguished Lecture Series on behalf of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“I will be discussing the enforcement of the ADA by the federal courts, particularly the court of appeals,” Colker said. “I will compare the enforcement of the ADA with other statutes such as civil rights statutes and commercial statutes.”
Colker’s lecture will conclude with information about the appellate courts being particularly hostile to plaintiffs in interpreting and enforcing the ADA and will counter some misleading media reports about the ADA being a “windfall for plaintiffs.”
“The ADA provides comprehensive protection from the moment one is born or becomes a person with a disability and might need access to public services to the time one might enter the workplace or seek to use a forum for public entertainment,” Colker said.
The lecture will be held from 4-6 p.m. at the Wexner Center for the Arts.
Other activities in October will include three professors from schools around the nation having a discussion about disability and performance art on Oct. 29 from 3:30-5:30 p.m. at George Wells Knight House.
Professor James Ferris from the University of Wisconsin, Professor Ann Fox from Davidson College and Professor Carrie Sandahal from Florida State University will speak about their own research and performance projects and discuss performance work on gender and sexual orientation.
