Adaptive Ballet

Adaptive ballet teaches classical ballet vocabulary, including the positions, port de bras, plie, tendu and reverence, to disabled and neurodivergent students by altering pedagogy rather than diluting content. Boston Ballet School founded its Adaptive Dance programme in 2002, describing it as the first of its kind in the world; it began with children with Down syndrome and now serves students with a wide range of disabilities from age two through adulthood, with a physical or occupational therapist present in each class and Maria Fux method material used with adult students. In Los Angeles, Bonnie Schlachte, who holds degrees in both psychology and dance, developed the Schlachte Method over roughly twenty-five years and teaches it through Ballet for All Kids. It addresses visual, auditory, vestibular and emotional learning channels using colour-coded floor spaces, visual schedules, mirrors, specially composed classical music and deliberately low-sensory studio environments. Both approaches retain the traditional class architecture of barre, centre, travelling work and reverence, and both culminate in performance, on the premise that disabled students deserve the same repertory, discipline and stage as anyone else.