Mary Verdi-Fletcher got her first dance lesson from her mother, a vaudeville dancer, when she was 3. Movement has been part of her life ever since.
Even when seated, she would sway constantly, snapping her leg braces several times. “Then they put me in a wheelchair [at age 12], and I broke that, too,” she says, laughing.
Verdi-Fletcher was born with spina bifida, a hole in the spine allowing nerves and fluid to exit. She never let it be a reason not to do something. She learned to drive, moved out of the house, went to college, got married and created a dance company.
That company, The Dancing Wheels Company & School, has inspired at least 75 national dance companies to integrate able-bodied performers and dancers with disabilities, including the blind and deaf. The company has performed for 4.5 million people, from New York to Hollywood, including a recent gala honoring the cast of the Fox television show Glee.
“She’s an icon in the disabled community,” says Teri Westerman, 53, who has cerebral palsy and just completed her first year as a trainee with Dancing Wheels.
Verdi-Fletcher got her first break in the dancing world in the 1980s. She and her best friend’s husband, a club dancer and gymnast, performed to “It’s Raining Men” during a dance competition. They earned a standing ovation and an invite to a Disney talent-search show.
“Before you know it, we were getting calls from all over the country to go and perform,” she says.
A few years later, Westerman, a self-trained dancer, attended one of Verdi-Fletcher’s full-day workshops and performances in Colorado Springs, Colo., and became determined to join the company.
Sure enough, she left her home state 21 years later to audition with Dancing Wheels. After being accepted, she packed up everything she owned and moved to Olmsted Falls with her roommate, despite her family’s objections.
Westerman says that, with Verdi-Fletcher’s encouragement, she’s not only gotten stronger and faster, she’s learned patience and perseverance while working with a body that wants to do the opposite of what she asks it to do.
“If they tell me to extend my arm, I can do it, but I also have to fight against the muscles that are telling me to bring it in,” she says. “But I keep working at it because I know with enough practice I can get there.”
More than anything, though, Verdi-Fletcher’s self-proclaimed type-A personality has taught Westerman discipline. “If you’re going to work for Mary, you’d better expect to work hard,” she says. “She expects the best out of everybody, and if you’re not giving it, she’ll call you on it.”