Faith and Nathaniel's dance videos are now on YouTube:
Autistic Pride Dancers - L.O.V.E.
Faith Andrew's jazz solo performed in Basic Attitude dance company's 2007 year end show at the Sanderson Centre, Brantford, Ontario. The choreography is by Sherri Chaffey, principal teacher and owner of BAdc. Costume by Veronica Watkins of Ancaster, Ontario. Videography by DRC Video Productions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgIcr3Jhk9E
Autistic Pride Dancers - Razzle Dazzle
Nathaniel Andrew's musical theatre solo performed in Basic Attitude dance company's 2007 year end show at the Sanderson Centre, Brantford, Ontario. The choreography is by Sherri Chaffey, principal teacher and owner of BAdc. Costume by Veronica Watkins of Ancaster, Ontario. Videography by DRC Video Productions. Thanks to the very friendly staff of A Kind of Magic, located in Waterloo, who worked with Nathaniel to plan and execute the illusions used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDPgIWFayQU
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5 comments:
It's time for an autistic festival, I think.
Thanks for your comments, and for sharing the kids' achievements with the community at large. The comments we've received are so rewarding. I love the suggestion of an Autism Festival - art, music, dance, everything. I re-read the last posting before the videos and realized how long it had been and how I'd left things unfinished. So.
Nathaniel passed his grade 6 piano exam with Honours and is working toward taking grade seven in the summer of 2008. He is taking a slight detour from his classical studies to indulge in some of his favourite music. This summer he spent his own money on music books and has been practicing pieces from The Phantom of the Opera, Evita, Simon & Garfunkel, Billy Joel, and The Beatles. I offered to buy him the music from The Sting if he'd play Solace for me and he happily assented. Nathaniel attended the Stratford Festival's Shakespeare School for a three day trial of their week long program. It was a fabulous program with incredible people and he is anxious to attend a full session next summer. The Stratford newsletter ran an article about Nathaniel - with a picture of Nathaniel looking 'theatrical'.
Faith passed her grade 3 ballet exam with Merit. The only distinction higher than Merit is Honours (the terms are not the same for music and dance). She tried a pottery class and an acting program this summer and had terrific success at both. Faith is auditioning for Ballet Jorgen's The Nutcracker, which uses local children for certain parts. She is also auditioning for a children's choir in a local theatre's Christmas play. Auditioning is great experience for her and she seems to really enjoy it.
I'm realizing that creative, artistic people are most accepting of my children. They are willing to look past anything that stands out as 'not normal' and see their abilities and talents. Artistic people embrace 'strange' and 'unusual', they don't run from it.
Nathaniel and Faith are both still educated at home. Nathaniel is taking grade 11 courses with an online high school and turns 15 after Christmas. Faith is now nine and works on grade 4 work at home. More dance pictures coming...
That's fabulous to watch. Thank you.
Best wishes
Often people who are in some way odd can be more accepting of diversity in general - not an absolute but a general tendency. I've found many gay rights people are quite accepting of autistic traits, for example. (But then there's people like David Kirby - he supports gay rights but has written probably one of the most hateful books about autistics, Evidence of Harm.)
I just saw your posted performance and it is wonderful! I have a son with Autism and I think what your doing is truly great. Wish more programs like yours could be available to more kids all over! I also have a blog about Autism and Art and I would very much love to use your article and link to the utube video, if this is ok with you. thanks
you can review my blog at www.creativespectrum.blogspot.com
jax
jax@atelierjax.com
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