by Noella Noelophile®
“We all have the ability to keep doing what we love,” said Infinite Flow core dancer Mia Schiakewitz.
Day Two of the seventeenth annual “Festival of Human Abilities” was in full swing, on Sunday at Long Beach’s Aquarium of the Pacific. Throughout the weekend, this seventeenth edition of the festival would celebrate the creative spirit of people with disabilities.
Art exhibits, performances, and workshops taught by instructors with and without disabilities would continue for the rest of the day.
And nonprofit Infinite Flow, an L.A.-based inclusive dance company, was performing just before noon.
On the main stage of the Honda Blue Cavern area, Mia and her partner, Martijn Sedgfield, had just completed a poignant choreographed selection.
This particular performance, Mia said, was “very emotional” for her.
“It was about someone I thought I could save.”
Next, Marty and Mia performed an uptempo hip-hop number. And then, it was the audience’s turn to have fun–as they taught them the first eight counts of the routine and had them dance onstage!
“Dance is all about communication and translation. It’s a language,” Mia explained.
Exuberance, imagination, talent
Meanwhile, in the main hall was a fine-art exhibit by talented artists–along with some very cool technology.
Customer Service Manager Brooke Everett explained that these “Colours in Motion” wheelchairs are smaller and more manageable than those normally created by medical suppliers.
They also have a lot more personality! Brooke demonstrated the multicolored LED lights on the wheels of one model.
And several of the day’s performers displayed style in motion while using them!
Here is hip hop artist Auti Angel in her customized chair (love the silver dollar signs!)…
…as well as the light-up accents on Chelsie Hill’s chair during the “Rollettes™'” high-energy performance.
Speaking of which, all of the above were amazing.
Each member of The Rollettes™ wheelchair dance team introduced herself briefly, prior to their performance.
A common theme of each young woman’s introduction: “These are my sisters”.
And they proceeded to rock the house!
Founder Chelsie Hill, in her introduction, had told the audience that she had been a dancer most of her life. A car accident left her paralyzed from the waist down. However, dance remained her dream.
Realizing that dance opportunities were limited for performers with disabilities, she started her own company.
And today, the Rollettes™ have grown into a community of women empowering women. This summer, Chelsie and her teammates said, they’d again be hosting “Rollettes Experience™“, a four-day camp in Los Angeles. It’s all about pushing away boundaries through dance, and anyone with a mobility disability is welcome.
Before they left the stage, they also had the opportunity to meet another powerful–and empowring–woman.
Aquarium of the Pacific Senior Marketing Coordinator and festival organizer Peter Martineau introduced them to Cody Unser, founder of the Cody Unser First Step Foundation!
Sign, music and emotion
Another standout musical performance starred Zendrea Mitchell, who performed four songs in American Sign Language.
Introducing her, Peter told the audience that Zendrea had asked to participate in the Festival of Human Abilities in a previous year.
At the time she applied, though, all performance slots were filled, so Peter asked if she would perform on one of the Aquarium’s outside terraces. Zendrea agreed.
(“Then I saw her perform and said, she has to be on the main stage,”) Peter said.
Speaking to the audience through a sign-language interpreter, Zendrea thanked the audience for coming.
(Incidentally, this is Siri, who interpreted the performers’ words in American Sign Language throughout the day. Peter commented that she “was Siri, before there was a Siri (device)”!)
Launching into her set, Zendrea started off with “Goodbye Road”. and took the audience on a journey through a spectrum of emotions…
…winding up with a moving interpretation of R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts”.
Thanking her for her performance, Peter commented that she had affected him, too! (“It’s true that we all hurt,”) he said.
The Festival honoree
At 1:30 that afternoon, the moment had arrived for a special honors ceremony.
The Glenn McIntyre Heritage Award was to be given–and the honoree was digital artist and entrepreneur Dani Bowman.
Dani, as mentioned in our Part One post, is the founder of Dani-Mation Entertainment. She created her company at the age of eleven–and has been working professionally in the animation field since she was fourteen.
In his introduction, Peter told the audience that he had first met Dani when she was twelve.
“She started getting really successful in animation (as a teenager),” Peter said. “Got awards at Comic-Con,..her animation career really took off. But then, something else we just found out about her, more recently, is…what she does for the community.
“She has a passion for helping other people with autism become animators. And she has become a leader in the autism community. She speaks, she does classes; she has this whole other talent which we think is even greater than her artistic talent, which is her leadership to inspire others…and to show them that they also have something special to offer.”
Peter also explained the name of the award.
“Glenn McIntyre got together with a woman whose name was Kathy Nirschl, and they started this festival, seventeen years ago.”
Peter explained that Glenn McIntyre was a police officer who had been injured.
Kathy Nirschl, who presented the award, is the Aquarium’s Vice President of Human Relations.
“One of her passions is to make the Aquarium accessible for everybody,” Peter said.
“Sadly, Glenn passed away, so we want to give our love to his family who are here to represent (him),” Peter said, after introducing Glenn’s daughters and granddaughters, as they stood near the stage.
An impressive resume
“…During the Festival of Human Abilities, the Aquarium honors individuals and organizations for outstanding community service and for promoting awareness, ” Kathy Nirschl said, in her introduction of the day’s honoree.
“Today, the Aquarium is honored to present the Glenn McIntyre Heritage Award to Dani Bowman.”
Whoops, cheers and applause greeted her announcement.
“The Dani Fan Club, yay!” Kathy commented.
Kathy said that Dani had been involved with the Aquarium–and the Festival of Human Abilities–for “nearly a decade”.
“Dani is on the autism spectrum,” Kathy continued.
After recapping Dani’s professional achievements, she added, “Since age fifteen, she has led summer camps for animation in locations across the country, and has taught animation to more than 1500 teens and young adults with autism and other different abilities.”
Kathy also mentioned that part of Dani-Mation Entertainment’s mission is to counteract past exclusion in the workforce for people with autism. The company employs talent with autism, including musicians and artists.
In addition to her career, Kathy added, Dani serves as an overseas ambassador to a nonprofit which promotes inclusion and equality for children and adults with autism.
“Dani, on behalf of all of us at the Aquarium of the Pacific, I want to thank you for all of your work to help individuals with autism express their talents…and develop their career opportunities,” Kathy said.
“I want to give you something.”
A leader–onstage and off
Stepping up to the microphone, Dani first offered a respectful tribute to Kobe Bryant, who had died earlier that morning.
“Thoughts and prayers to his family,” she said.
Achieving her dreams–and guiding others
Next, Dani shared her journey with her audience.
“I am so very thankful to be honored with this award. For the past eight years, I watched other very deserving organizations (and individuals receive this honor. I didn’t expect to be a recipient,)” she commented.
Dani added that her award–and the achievements that preceded it–had once seemed impossible, due to her autism. When she was a child, she continued, a doctor had told her family that she would never “amount to much”.
“Some parents believe all this mumbo jumbo and we (with autism) grow up believing it ourselves,” she said.
(“I’m here to tell you that it’s possible, and to go after your dreams.”)
Dani also introduced her current mentee, Zoe Ramos, who had screened her animated short, “The Indiana Cheese Muncher”, during the morning workshop on animation.
And then Dani delivered some news.
A few minutes earlier, Kathy had told the audience that the day’s honoree was currently working towards her Master’s degree in business at Woodbury University.
“This is the first time I’ve said it. I’m going for my Ph.D.,” Dani said, as the audience cheered.
Art and hip hop
No matter whom you see and where you are, during the Festival of Human Abilities, one thing is a given. You will miss something. So much of interest is going on, all at once.
But a highlight of the afternoon was abstract artist Tommy Hollenstein’s wheelchair-paintng workshop.
Participants could either get into a wheelchair and paint using the wheels, as Tommy has demonstrated in the past–or use hands and feet to create a memento of the day.
“Put your hands where you want to, on the board,” said Tommy, as the workshop began.
“It’s your creation, OK?”
At the time I was there, most participants were opting to use their hands or feet, rather than actual wheelchair painting. They came up with some fun ideas!
But I couldn’t miss hip hop artist Auti Angel, scheduled to perform almost simultaneously. 
Auti and her fellow dancers Ceraldo and Ossi performed a stern-looking precision number, in their military garb.
Their moves left the audience whooping and cheering.
Then Auti took the mic–and smiled, sharing a lesson about showmanship.
“I had my ‘Beyonce face’ on, but inside I was like,’Oh, my God’,” she told the audience, prompting laughter and cheers.
Auti then asked Ceraldo and Ossi to say “Follow your dreams” in their native tongues–Dutch and French, respectively. (Ceraldo, Auti said, is from the Netherlands; Ossi is from Belgium.)
And she shared her message with the audience.
“You’re fine, just the way you are,” she said, to more cheers, before inviting audience members to come by and talk with her near the Colours exhibit.
Before leaving the stage, Auti also thanked Peter Martineau, for all his work coordinating this seventeenth annual Festival of Human Abilities.
Peter commented that he found the work especially rewarding.
(“My son and daughter are six and eight. They see the video of the wheelchair dances and say, ‘That’s really cool’,”) he said.
Day Two Aquarium of the Pacific’s seventeenth annual Festival of Human Abilities was winding down. But it had been a great one!
The overriding theme of the day, no matter who was performing, painting or teaching, was this: If you have a dream, don’t let anyone or anything stop you.
That message was best summed up by one audience member’s reaction.
In the course of her acceptance speech, Dani Bowman had been commenting on doctors’ tendency to generalize about their patients’ disabilities and assign limits.
When she said, “…and we grow up believing (them)”, one man audibly murmured,
“Not any more.”