Via the Akron Beacon Journal:
For the nomination of an Extraordinary Woman, I have no hesitation in presenting Mary Verdi-Fletcher, an outstanding public servant in the areas of arts and disabilities advocacy.
Born with spina bifida and utilizing a wheelchair for mobility, Mary faced enormous challenges to fulfill her aspirations to dance professionally. Although Mary's personal history is fraught with tremendous obstacles, including many surgeries and a life threatening kidney transplant, these ''inconveniences'' only served to strengthen her resolve to achieve the goal of expanding the arts and dance in particular, to the highest possible level.Her lifelong interest and desire to participate in dance drove Mary to create Dancing Wheels in 1980 as a vehicle for all people of all abilities to have the opportunity to experience the artistic expression that dance provides. The almost immediate success of this venture confirmed that there was a real need to make the arts accessible to people with disabilities as participants.
Dancing Wheels, the nation's first professional modern dance company to integrate highly skilled stand-up and sit-down (wheelchair user) dancers, has opened the door to the arts for people with disabilities, an area relatively unexplored prior to Mary's instigation. In 1989, Mary expanded the mission of Dancing Wheels by establishing the umbrella organization, Professional Flair, Inc. as a non-profit arts/disability organization to introduce, integrate and employ people with disabilities in professional careers, primarily in the arts.By broadening the scope of the Dancing Wheels organization to include performances, educational outreach and advocacy, Mary has maintained the highest standards of excellence in teaching, performing, and choreography.
The School of Dancing Wheels offers an education series that covers all aspects of dance education from traditional story ballet to wheelchair technique and provides professional training for those who want to pursue a career in the arts. While Mary strives to promote the arts, and more specifically dance, she also promotes advocacy for disabilities. The advocacy series offers speaking engagements, topical lectures, art organization consultation, and ADA requirement interpretation.As the company embarks on its 25th Anniversary, Dancing Wheels is recognized for its artistic excellence and is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council. The performing troupe travels nationally and internationally and, through their combined educational outreach, workshops, master classes and main stage concerts and tours, reach over 120,000 persons a year, performing in over 3,000 venues around the world.
Visionaries like Mary make the future the present. They also make it possible to envision a time in the near future when there will be no need for awards to recognize the achievements of the visionaries because they will have become the standard practice of the day.
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