Too Autistic for Dance Class? Not Here!

When I was diagnosed, because I was good enough, I spent many a day in the therapy office trying to learn how to be neurotypical. And I think that was one of the problems that we had with dance teachers is I wasn't letting that happen to her.

Mm.

It's the Foster to Forever podcast. Happy stories of non traditional families born through through Foster to Adopt. I'm your host, Rachel Fulgenetti.

I am so happy to welcome to the show Amanda Trisdale and Leeta Rundell. They have founded the Autistic Wings Dance Company and I cannot wait to hear their story. Welcome, guys.

Thank you so much for having us.

I am so interested in your story and the origins of your dance company.

It has to go back to the beginning. Nina was born, you know, autistic, as every autistic person is.We found out when she was really young, she had one of her physical therapists because she also has a deformed right hip. He suggested that her stim looked an awful lot like tap dancing. So we should put her in tap. Put her in tap. She excelled.The problem was she excelled so much. She was in with the middle schoolers as a six or seven year old and then by eight, she was in with the high schoolers.But as talented as she was, her teachers could not work with her. They didn't understand the autism. And she would be told things like, go sit in the corner because you're not smart enough.You don't have the middle capacity to be in this class. She also works with Chloe Arnold.And for your audience who doesn't know who Chloe Arnold is, she is currently, she's ranked up there with like Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, that group.

How did you meet her?

She's an amazing woman. During COVID like, one of my friends went, hey, Lita's having withdrawal from tap dance.This Chloe Arnold person is going to try and do an online conference to make up for her not being able to do it in person this year. It took one online conference with Chloe and her sister Maude and the entire gang, and suddenly Lita's in with that group.So Lita was living two lives in the Stance studio. She was being told, you're not good enough because of your autism. But on the other hand, she's on Chloe's international tap dance company for youth.And so we decided to take a page out of Chloe's book. Chloe, when she went out to Hollywood, there were no parts for a female tap dancer that were in the front.And she's like, well, then I'LL just make my own space.

Nice.

So we did that for autistic kids.

I love that. So what did you know about opening a dance studio before you did this?

I worked with the nonprofit community up in Denver when I was her age. And so I'm like, I know how to do a nonprofit. Let's go find people who kind of know what to do with dance.The first thing we did figure out, though, was we needed to throw out everything the traditional dance studios do. We don't have more than four kids in the class, and it turns out it's better for our students.

All of the students are on the spectrum.

Every single one of our students are on the spectrum, from our youngest students to our adult students.We decided it had to be an autistic only class because while there are autistic dance classes, they're not run the way they should be for autistic kids.

Can you expand on that?

So dance does have a heart for helping other people, but these are autistic dance classes were created by people who are not in the community, who are not therapists, who are not neurologists, who are not autistic themselves, and they don't understand autism.Like, one of our students was actually kicked out of one of the autistic dance classes in town for being too autistic because they don't understand the autism things that we'll allow in class, like stimming. They're not allowing even their autism classes because the stimming makes the teachers.And that's one of the problems Lita had was teachers thought her stimming meant she was being disrespectful. Yeah, autistic classes. Around here, there are 20 to 30 kids, which I cannot imagine having 20 to 30 neurotypical preschoolers.

So you decided to make this a different kind of a space. Are the teachers all neurodivergent as well, or.

No, our main teacher, Ms. Gail, is not diagnosed neurodivergent, but the likelihood of all of her children having some form of neurodivergency.Her grandchild and one of her great grandchildren are also in the studio. So back then, you just did not get diagnosed.

Right.

But she's very good because she does. She has the patience of an angel with our kids.

Remind us again of where you are.

Colorado Springs, Colorado.

So it sounds like there were resources for autistic people there. There are. It's just that they're not real effective in the dance world.

I think everyone has a heart for the autistic community. That's Doing this. But no one's in the autistic community.We've got a couple dancers who've been thrown out of autistic art programs for being too autistic. We have a dancer who was asked to leave an autistic gymnastics program for being too autist.The programs that are there are not run by people who understand the community. It's. Someone came up with this brilliant idea of, oh, I feel bad. I feel sorry for these kids.

Yes. How long have you been open?

Since September.

Okay. And what's the response? Been amazing.

Once we kind of explained we were different, at first, people were a little leery because, you know, it's a marginalized community that has seen this song and dance before.But once they realized, you know, we're working with, I've got a PhD, the number of paper rabbit holes, I've gone down going, hey, did anyone see this new research on this? We are working with some of the therapy groups in town to make sure we're introducing vocabulary. Right.I know everyone has a love hate relationship with the IEPs. I'm no difference. I've done 20 years of advocacy work with it. But I may have taken everyone's love hate IEP and tried to tweak it to the dance world.And our parents have, like, loved it, because before their kid even enters the studio, we know so much about their kids. So our teachers are meeting them at the door, knowing where their language issues are, where their, you know, motor skills are.

Oh, that's great. So they have access to the children's IEPs, and so they really understand the individual. Because every person with autism is different.

Yeah. It makes a huge difference. And our classes are small enough.Our teachers will change what they're doing in the class on the fly because we've got a couple kids in the combo classes that don't like one form of dance. And our teachers will go, okay, well, then we're not doing that dance today.

And are they. They're separated by ages, or is it separated by ability? Or how does that work?

They're separated by both. We're separating them by ages. We're separating by dance ability, and we're separating them by as much as we can. What accommodations they need.

And what are some of those accommodations like? What would that look like?

We've got a couple kids who need their parents in class. Even though they're older, they're not completely verbal yet. They need their parents help understanding exactly what's going on.I mean, their parents know them better than any of us. Know them. I know I'm probably preaching to the choir because you know your daughter better than anyone else.

That is very true.

We've got a couple kids that they definitely need one on one. They cannot right now function in a larger group.Some of the kids need extra water breaks just because they need time to restabilize themselves before they have a meltdown.

Sure.

We've got kids that they like certain types of music. So that's the music that's being played in the classroom. Whether or not the teacher likes that type of music, she'll learn to like.

Right. And you said there's only four students to a class.

Maximum of four students.

Maximum of four.

A lot of classes that right now it's their first time in dance. They're one on one.

Right. I'm curious about the tap component. So it's not all tap, but there is tap. Tap is such a. Like, you need so much coordination to do tap.Or maybe I'm making that assumption then that's not true. Tell me about that.

It looks like it takes a lot of coordination, but if you teach it right, it's like drums.You just need to know the beats and the sounds, which is really fun because when you get to professional, instead of going flat ball, change your professional choreographers. Like I need you to do ta da da da da da da. A lot of the teachers want to make it harder than it is because they're not tap dancers themselves.

Interesting. Did you have a background in dance?

I did dance as a kid and then I stopped for medical reasons.

Okay, and were you diagnosed as an adult? Are you autistic as well?

I was diagnosed back in the dark ages of the 80s.

I remember the 80s when I was.

Diagnosed because I was good enough. I spent many a day in the therapy office trying to learn how to be neurotypical.

Yes, yes, that was.

And I think that was one of the problems that we had with dance teachers is I wasn't letting that happen to her.

Yes, absolutely.

It's like, I did this. It's not fair. Masking is not healthy for you, it turns out.Yeah, I had a therapist that was like, what you need to do is realize the only way you can make friends is. Is not be yourself that you need to mirror.Whatever, whoever's in front of you, you need to have their exact hobbies, their exact wants, their exact needs. And everyone I went to school with, now that we're adults and I'm no longer masking, they're like, you are so different.Like, nothing we did as kids, did you continue with. And I'm like, because that was never me.

Wow. Did you have feelings about. I'm sure you had feelings about that after the fact. Like, has it been a. A process for you to deal with that?Do you consider that trauma that you had in your childhood?

Definitely trauma. Give on a minute. Definitely trauma. She want a minute.

I don't know if it's trauma per se, because I had some other stuff that I think was a little bit more traumatic in childhood.

Okay.

But there's been a lot of deep decompressing, especially with having a kid who's autistic and going, oh, heck no. You're not doing this to her.

Yeah.

And when therapists or teachers are like, well, it'll be just fine. I'm like, one of her dance teacher, former dance teachers thought because we're back home. My husband and I both grew up in Colorado.Even though we're military, they brought us back here. One of my heroes, former dance teachers, thought something being said was being said about her and was like, well, you need to understand.Lita will get over this. And I'm like, we're talking about my kindergarten teacher in this discussion.

Right?

And she's like, what? I'm like, it's been almost 40 years. I have still not gotten over it.

Yes. Yes. Wow, that's. That's really cool that you're able to at least help her in her path. Leda, what has this meant to you?Do you enjoy having this dance studio?

I get paid and candy, and I get to play with children.

That sounds awesome. You said that this was a nationwide endeavor that you've created.

We would love to make this go everywhere. Our board right now is in multiple different states. We are trying to currently hear.I mean, I've got my PhD, so of course, I'm like, how many papers can we get out on this for everyone? We want to see this go everywhere. We're talking to some dance. Traditional dance studios. I don't think you can do it in a traditional dance studio.I think it's too much effort and you need to go nonprofit.

Okay.

Only because if you're not nonprofit, you people can't afford your classes.

Gotcha.

It's costing us for our preschool classes. It's costing about $1,300 a month to put them on.

Wow.

There is no way any parent is going to be able to pay 1300. We're charging $45 a month for classes.

For a weekly class. Is that or weekly class?

Yeah.

How are you making that Work right.

Now my husband and I are giving a lot of it, but we are a nonprofit, which means we can work with major corporations and they can, you know, take a tax donations.We're currently in the middle of a huge fundraiser so that we can get more space because we are at the point we're having to turn students away, we don't have enough space for them.And we're doing what I'm calling 350 and 365, where we're trying to find 350 people to donate $10 a month and the next year to take a good chunk of a lease off our hands.

Oh, that's really. Yeah.

But being non profit, it's a lot easier to go convince people to hand you money. And the other thing is, I know exactly where the insurance companies will pay for dance because you can sometimes get insurance. Medicaid.Oh, it's not Medicaid plus anymore, but the add on Medicaid deal will also pay for dance classes. Every now and then they max out.

At $55 a month, but you're keeping it under that. So that actually works.

Yeah. Our preschool class is 45. Our early elementary, which is 45 minute class is $50.And our one hour upper classes are $55, which is exactly where most of the major insurance is. I know everyone hates insurance. I am not saying insurance is good.

Right. But it's, it's helpful. And are you working with the.I don't know what it would be where you live, but we have an office of people with developmental disabilities and they offer stipend money for stuff like this. Are you working with, with that kind of organization?

We don't actually have that here in the state of Colorado. We are.I don't want to get too political, but we have something called the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which was passed in 1992 and it limits how much we can spend out of our state can spend out of taxes. And it also allows the general public to decide how taxes are spent. Currently, the general public has amendments to the state constitution passed.Since then, they have already predetermined where 150% of budget yearly is going.

Wow.

Which makes it a little difficult to do anything else.

Wow. Yeah, that's. That's unfortunate. Sorry to hear that.

Yeah, it's a thing. And when people are like, you guys have this in other states? I'm like, yeah, do not get attacked. It sounds great on paper.It's not great in real life.

Interesting. Okay, so your plan to expand into other. Other cities and, and places. Would that be, would it look like, would it be like a franchise?Like somebody could open like a, like you already set it up and then somebody just opens that or. I'm just wondering if some listeners are interested in bringing this to their.

Obviously wouldn't be a franchise because of the non profit, but we can open up because we are fully overseen by the rs. We can open up branches, we can walk you through how to open it up.Specifically yourself if you want to do it as your own non profit and not be under our umbrella.

Uh huh.And when you say, just to clarify, when you say that it's so expensive to do one of your classes and that you don't think it would work for dance studios? Because here's where my head is going. A lot of dance studios are struggling.I have friends who are dancers and it's like, it's really hard and it seems like there would be such a market for this that it would be great to be able to house it with a, a, a, a traditional dance studio. Am I totally off base?

You could house it with a traditional dance studio. We actually have an amazing dance studio who's letting us have space. The problem is you need the space because when you open it, people will come.

Uhhuh.

The thing is the way dance studios make that money is adding more and more kids to a class. And if you go above four or five kids in a class, you're going to find the therapy groups around you.They're going to tell their parents no, because four kids is the industry standard in autism care of how big a group can be.

Okay.

And I've had to discuss this with my board because they're a bunch of professional dancers and they're like, well, why can't we have 20 kids in the class? And I'm like, because you still want to have a good relationship with the community.

Yeah, no, that makes sense.

But no, we actually.One of our local breakdancing studios has been super kind and has opened their doors to us and they work their class schedules around when we need classes too. I think you could do it. You just. Like I said, we're at the point we need a larger studio.We're bringing them with us when we leave because they've been so great to us because they only need one studio a night and we're like, we need two or three a night.

So you're in different locations right now across the city we're in one location.

But we're looking for a larger location because currently we can only do Two nights a week without putting the studio we're with out of business.

Right.

But this is such a needed thing that you'd be shocked at how many. Because we also offer adult classes because autism Programs stop at 18. Autism doesn't stop at 18.

Right.

Even within the dance studios around here, all the autism classes stop at 8. And I'm like, I don't know if you're aware of this, but autism goes.

A little past eight.

You also have to be. Some of our students are not potty trained and they're 10, 15. You have to be okay with your students in diapers still.You have to be okay with the sensory issues. I'm having to talk to one mom because she's like, well, you said she has to wear tights. And I'm like, she is dying in the tights.We're taking her out of those tights.

Yeah, I mean, I don't wear tights. I mean, I hate tights.

She won't even.

So does my daughter. Yeah, she doesn't wear tights either. No way.

Okay. On my defense, in the leotard, those are actively getting more in the zone of, oh, hey, a creep else designed this.

She has.

So they can wear whatever they want, like whatever is comfortable.

They can. We can't say which company is supporting us yet because they haven't come out and full out said it.But if you look on their social media, you can probably guess which dancewear company it is. She will even wear her tap shoes when she's working with the babies as they're doing ballet. She hates ballet shoes. She's not.We're not putting her in ballet shoes. And if I'm not putting the founder in ballet shoes, why would I Put your child in.

And do you do performances or will you do performances as well? Or is it just experiential?

We are doing performances. We're working on that, trying to find a place right now, and we're getting our kids ready for it.We're going to be doing some performance of some sort at our local autism walks in June.

Okay.

Getting performance space in the city. That's another reason we've are looking at getting a larger space.The performance spaces in the city are running tens of thousands of dollars a night. And I mean, she goes out to LA on a regular basis to work with Chloe.Uh, I could understand in la, some of those performance spaces, the performance spaces here are not fake enough or good enough to Cossack.

What's your social media so people can check you out?

Lita Tap Styles on YouTube, Lita Tap Styles on Instagram and then Lita Tap style podcast on TikTok.

And then do you have a website for your organization?

We do. It's Autistic Wings Dance company dot org. A lot of our parents don't want their kids on social media. I understand that.I don't think I would want my child necessarily except for, you know, her career says she has to.

Right.

And so you get to see a lot of LEDA on those socials. I know a few of the dance studios owners have been like, well just make it where their kid. You're not showing the kid's face.And I'm like, I'm not putting a kid on socials unless her parents say it's okay.

Right? Yes, absolutely.

I would love to see this. And if a traditional studio wants to try it, I am more than willing to help them through it. But it's a lot of work.

Right, got it.

Like you said, the dance studios, we're having to turn kids away. Every other dance studio in town is losing dancers.

Did you know it was going to be, did you have a feeling it was going to be that successful?

Yeah, mainly because we, I've been talking to a lot of our friends who are professionals who were going, if they had had this as a kid, probably, probably would have been easier. It would have been easier. You read some of the stuff coming out in the dance magazines for the teachers. It's not that they're evil.The advice they're getting is wrong.

Uh huh.

It's stuff like, well, you just need to teach them how to ma. And they're not calling it masking because they don't know it's masking.

Right, right.

But they're like, you just need to teach them how to learn the way you need them to learn.

Yeah. It doesn't work that way.

I know we're going to make some enemies possibly this fall because if we get our larger space, we are going to start a pre professional program at the studio.

Yay.

And a lot of the dance studios counter like, well, if you take our pre professional kids. And I'm like, if you weren't making the mask right well, but we're not making the mask. We're very inclusive, we're very welcoming.We just need them to fit within our program. And it's not just here in Colorado Springs, it's across the country.I've had a couple studio owners go, how can I make my neurodivergent kids fit in with the neurotypical kids? Right.

And your response to that is, you shouldn't be trying to do that.

If you're trying to do that, you're not an inclusive environment.

Right. It's still a misconception, unless you're someone who has educated yourself in particular about this subject.It's like, even the eye contact thing is still a thing. Like, you know, they're always trying to get my daughter to make eye contact in school and stuff. And it's like, that's not.Like, she doesn't need to make eye contact. She's listening.

And the papers on the eye contact are showing that it's harder for autistic people to listen when they make eye contact, because they're spending so much time in their head trying to make sure they know exactly how long to make contact, when to break eye contact, when to do this, when to do that, when is it too much staring? So what you're asking them to do is not listen. But, yeah. There is still so much that people don't understand about the neurodivergent world.I think that's one of the things we're having to do with our parents at the studio is they're always apologizing for their kid. And it's like, stop. This is a safe space.

Yes.

We're not gonna judge you. And the number of parents who are like, well, I mean, I'm trying to make that not happen. And it's like, it's okay.I mean, I'm in my 40s, and I still have meltdowns. Trust. Trust me, it's fine. Yeah.

In terms of, like, sensory stuff, are there accommodations there that you. That you have, like, music being, like, not overly loud or. It just depends, I guess, on the individuals in the class.

It a hundred percent depends on the individuals in the class. Because we have kids that don't mind the loud music. We have kids who don't mind the lights. We have.This one is a tap dancer, but she cannot handle applause after her performances.

Trying to make my blades.

Try explaining that to neurotypical studios where they're like, but she does tap. And I'm like, that is processed differently in your brain than clapping.Tap is processed like drums and drums and tap are processed totally differently than clapping is.

But is that why dad likes drums?

Yeah, that's why your dad likes drums.But no, the sensory things, it's even while we do have an amazing dancewear company that is supporting us, they're like, if your kids like, this one is not in our clothing, we're fine. If they can't wear our shoes. We're fine. You don't have to wear the leotard.A bunch of our boys are in sweatpants where in a normal studio they would have to be in, you know, tight leggings. And I mean, our sensory issues go, like, more than just because I had one studio call up and go, well, we could just turn down the music.And I'm like, if only sensory issues were just music, right?

Yeah.

She and I both hate wearing socks. It's a thing.

Socks are evil.

And he said his child doesn't like wearing socks. And I'm like, well, then why are you making him wear socks in the studio?

Throw them in a volcano.

Is there anything else that I'm missing or that you think we should know?

Studios do want to look into this. I am more than willing to talk to them.

Wonderful. So how should people get in touch with you if they wanted to?

I would suggest contacting me through the studio. It's just info at autistic wings dance company.org or you can use our contact form on the website.

I want to thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you for having us, Lita.

Thank you. And I'm going to look. I want to look and see your. Your dance. I'm going to look it up and check it out because I think that's super cool.

You say thank you.

This has been the Foster to Forever podcast. Happy stories of non traditional families born through Foster to adopt. Produced by Aquarius Rising, edited by Jason Sirubi at Split Rock Studios.Original music composed by Joe Fulginetti.For more information or to stay in touch, visit from foster foster2forever.com that's from foster the number2forever.com and stay connected with us on Instagram at Foster2forever podcast. That's Foster the number two forever podcast. We'll see you next time.