While teaching and developing programs for a local dance studio in 2008, studio owner Brenda Wright and I wanted a group of dancers to perform at the 2009 Special Olympics World Games hosted in Boise, Idaho.  Brenda left it up to me to form and lead the group, while she wrote a proposal to fund the project.  All my personal and professional experience with disability and dance swirled around in my mind, and I knew this could be something very different than the typical youth dance group.  The idea of forming a group of dancers with and without disabilities really excited me.  At night, I had dreams about an inclusive group in which people of all ages packed into a room, eager to dance together.  This felt immensely important, and I was pulled into action by a momentum that traveled through me to create something that wanted to exist.  

I pitched my vision to Brenda, who applied to Boise City Department of Arts & History for funding. Our grant was approved, and Open Arms Dance Project was born!  I gathered together middle school students without disabilities and all ages of dancers with disabilities.  I choreographed and directed the group, learning about the difficulties and joys of full inclusion in a dance setting.  It was an invigorating challenge, and Open Arms Dance Project successfully performed at three events during the 2009 Special Olympics World Games.

After this big event, I had difficulty keeping Open Arms inclusive.  Most young dancers without disabilities were not interested in dancing with the group with no high profile performance, like the Special Olympics World Games, on the horizon.  I was frustrated and perpetually brainstormed about how I could sustain an inclusive dance company. When I talked to colleagues about this I was asked candid questions like, "Why would non-disabled people want to dance in this group?  What's in it for them?"  This illuminated common beliefs that non-disabled people didn’t have anything to learn from people with disabilities, nor any reason to create friendships with them. These questions made me realize the necessity for what I was trying to do - transform attitudes about the value of people with disabilities in our society.  I began justifying and articulating the importance of sustaining an inclusive dance company, first to myself, then on paper, and finally I began saying it out loud.  I clarified in my mind that Open Arms Dance Project was a company committed to promoting relationships with and respect for people with disabilities, all while creating quality dance art.  I distilled this into the first Open Arms mission statement:  To move the community towards greater compassion through our actions and our art.

One of the people who heard me advocating for an inclusive dance company was Leah Stephens Clark, Artistic Director of Balance Dance Company at the time.  In 2011, Leah and I decided to create a collaborative piece with both our dance companies.  Leah enlisted the talents of Celeste Miller, an artist focused on co-creative community dance making (whom I was lucky to later learn from during my 2020/21 Curriculum in Motion training through Jacob’s Pillow). Celeste facilitated the creation of "Praying Mantis", a collaboratively choreographed, inclusive dance with text for Open Arms and Balance dance companies.  The result was an extraordinary and transformative experience for everyone involved.  Open Arms Dance Project and Balance Dance Company spent five wonderful years as sister companies, continuing to support each other in our missions and visions.

After this collaboration, many people were excited about Open Arms Dance Project, including Gail Chandler Hawkins. However, I still did not have a consistent group of dancers without disabilities in the company to keep it inclusive.  I decided to take the leap I had been considering and make Open Arms intergenerational - and since she expressed interest, I first invited Gail to join us. By drawing dancers from ages 7 to 80+, with no upper age limit, I was able to gather enough dancers without disabilities to have a sustainable inclusive dance company. This model has worked beautifully, and since 2011, Open Arms Dance Project has been inclusive and intergenerational! A few years after Gail joined, I learned that she was the director of the “senior citizens program” at the Liz Learman Dance Exchange in the late 1970’s! Gail C. Hawkins danced with Open Arms for 12 years until she was 77, performing with us on stage at the Morrison Center for the Performing Arts, even as her health was waning. We miss her and deeply appreciate her dedication and many contributions to Open Arms.

Another dancer joined around the same time as Gail and after she had been dancing with Open Arms for two years and learning my philosophy and style of empowering people with disabilities, I welcomed Ali Landers (Moto) as a second choreographer for the company. For the next five years, Ali and I choreographed dances for the company. Ali has taken all that she learned in Open Arms Dance Project and now teaches adaptive dance and yoga in the Boise area! Whether I trained them in Heyburn, Rexburg, Pocetello, or Boise, ID - through Idaho Parents Unlimited grants or Idaho Dance Educator Organization conferences - every instructor inspired to teach based on the Open Arms philosophy is evidence of the Open Arms Dance Project mission is successfully enriching our community, city, and state with increased dance offerings for people with disabilities!

Currently, I am interested in exploring the ways I can invite every dancer to co-create our choreography. This way of creating movement speaks volumes because everyone is empowered and involved in what is being expressed. Our creative process draws further inspiration from the beautiful 5th floor Move Studio at JUMP where Open Arms is so grateful to rehearse every week! Since 2016, Open Arms Dance Project has been collaborating with JUMP, rehearsing there, and performing at various JUMP events. Another organization that has a complementary mission with Open Arms, everyone at JUMP is welcoming and accepting of our diverse dance company, and we love this collaboration!

While this represents the wonderful history of Open Arms Dance Project from 2008 to the present, there is a bit more to the story -- including my personal connection to disability.  While dancing with Idaho Dance Theatre at Boise State University in 2000, I began working with people with disabilities one-on-one, in camps, and eventually as a Paraprofessional in a special education classroom.  Then, funded by Idaho Parents Unlimited/ VSA Idaho's Creative Access Arts Programming and encouraged by my friend and fellow dancer Kayla Oakes, I began combining my love of dance and my work with people with disabilities by teaching my first dance classes for young adults and children with disabilities.  

In 2002, I moved to Colorado to pursue my BFA degree in Modern Dance Performance and Choreography at the University of Colorado at Boulder, along with my Elementary teaching license.  Soon after I moved away from home, my parents called to tell me my dad had been diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease.  My whole world changed.  I was devastated to know that my dad would gradually become paralyzed and ultimately die from this disease.  The next day, I went to my summer job at a camp for people with disabilities, and I heard a well meaning co-worker speaking in a tone of voice one would normally use when talking to a baby, but instead she was talking to a teenage girl who was non-verbal and in a wheelchair.  Knowing my dad would need a wheelchair and probably be nearly non-verbal someday, I made a commitment to always speak to and treat anyone with a disability with respect.  

I began traveling home about every 6 weeks.  I pared back my educational plans, moving forward with my degree in dance, minus the certificate in education.  I continued teaching dance classes for people with disabilities through Boulder Parks and Recreation. When I was home, I witnessed the challenges of having a physical disability firsthand as my dad became less and less mobile and my mom cared for him.  Back at school, I danced out my sadness, and I danced with great reverence for each muscle I could move.  I dedicated my dancing -- my rhythmic, joyful moving of muscles -- to my dad, as his muscles gradually became still.  

On one visit home, I waved goodbye to my dad sitting in his wheelchair in the driveway as, true to our rural Idaho upbringing, my husband and I left to country swing dance the night away at the Elk's club.  A year earlier, when my dad had full use of his legs, he would have jumped at the chance to join us.  But now, he stayed home.  My mom is the first to admit that my affinity for dance was passed down to me from my dad.  I always loved two-stepping with him around the house and I mourned no longer being able to do this.  I felt so sad and angry he wasn't joining us at the Elk's that night.  As I waved at him, I fumed inside over the unfairness and, what was a radical idea at that time - but is now a reality, arose within me -- everyone, with or with out disabilities, should have the freedom and opportunity to joyfully dance.  This is truly the moment Open Arms Dance Project was born.

I graduated in May 2005 with my BFA degree in Modern Dance.  My dad passed away three months later in August.  The joy that is cultivated and celebrated in Open Arms Dance Project in every rehearsal, season after season, is dedicated to the memory of my father, Wesley Allan Evans, and every other person with a body or mind that may limit the full expression of their beautiful dancing soul.

- Megan Brandel