Taking up Space: Wheelchair Dance Team Rollettes on Community, Creativity, and Reconnecting with Your Body
When Conner Lundius and Chelsie Hill watched the video sent to them by the Boston Celtics dance team, they both started crying. The Rollettes, a professional wheelchair dance team based out of Los Angeles that both Conner and Chelsie belong to, performed during half time at Celtics game in 2022. The Celtics Dancers had wanted to join the Rollettes on the court for the last few minutes of their routine, and so Conner and Chelsie had sent them a recording of what they’d each choreographed: rhythmic movement both integrating and celebrating the Rollettes’ wheels.
What the Celtics Dancers sent back to them blew them away – a non-disabled dance routine that so perfectly complemented the Rollettes’ choreography it reaffirmed to Conner a greater truth: although it may look different for different people, the core of dance is the same for everyone.
“Dance is the puzzle piece that connects my pre-injury and post-injury life,” Conner, 30, who’d been dancing over 15 years before she sustained a L2 spinal cord injury, said. “When I perform, I don’t feel any different from how I did performing pre-injury."
Dance transcends mobility differences – this is the belief upon which the Rollettes are built. Founded in 2012 by Chelsie Hill, the team began as a way to create community two years after a car accident left Chelsie a T-10 paraplegic. Now, the Rollettes provide community and more. “It’s really nice to have the support of a group of friends who know what it’s like to be a disabled woman trying to take up space in this world,” Joci Scott, 25, said.
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Beyond their full-time team of six members, the Rollettes have a Lil Sisters program for disabled women interested in being a part of the team but unable to commit full-time or move to L.A. Lil Sisters often become full-time team members: Conner and Joci both started out this way.
Then there’s the Boundless Babes Society, an online mentorship program that began during the COVID-19 pandemic and is still going strong. Disabled women are paired with a mentor and meet once a month for a year to discuss different topics, often with guest speakers (such as motivational speaker Alycia Anderson) featured as well.
Much of what the Rollettes do culminates in Rollettes Experience, a 4-day dance camp and women’s empowerment weekend that happens every summer in L.A. Rollettes Experience is more than just dance classes. It features panels, special evening events, and guest speakers such as Judy Heumann and Jillian Mercado, both of whom participated in previous years. Last year, there were over 200 attendees spanning a multitude of disabilities, ages, and backgrounds, with a full seven countries represented.
Every year, there are women who say they aren’t dancers and therefore don’t belong at Rollettes Experience. Every year, they prove themselves wrong. “Dance is for everyone,” Conner said. “You don’t know what’s going to happen until you try it.”
Conner and Joci believe the importance of dance for people with disabilities is that it allows you to learn how your body moves while also grounding you in your body.
It’s not just dance.
“There's so much unknown about being disabled and navigating the world as a disabled person,” Conner said. “Finding ways to be creative, whether that's dance, or art, or creative writing, or cooking – It forces you to look inward about how you really feel. That level of connection with yourself, your mind, and your body as someone with a disability is really important, because that's going to give you a certain level of confidence to go out there and accomplish anything you want.”
Learn more about the Rollettes and sign up for Rollettes Experience, July 11-14, 2024, by visiting rollettesexperience.com. The deadline to register is June 27.
Author's Bio: Hannah Soyer is the Outreach & Education Content Specialist at the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.