North Pointe Ballet hosts World Autism Awareness Day program

ELYRIA – A Lorain County-based dance troupe recognized World Autism Awareness Day on Saturday with a presentation at Lorain County Community College. North Pointe Ballet hosted a screening of choreographer Janet Dziak's work "Because of You," which chronicles her family's journey with her son's Autism diagnosis. "I had a son that wasn't developing typically, we found out that he was on the spectrum and I had art to cope with that and he could cope and I have this wonderful network," she said. "That's how this piece got started." The 20-minute piece included Dziak dancing with her son, Lucas, and other performers, and later on the pair and two other dancers performed a live excerpt from the virtual program. Dziak, of North Ridgeville, is an adjunct professor at Oberlin College, and executive artistic director of North Pointe Ballet. She created the dance piece originally in 2019, and then adapted it virtually in 2021 to be used in schools. "Our mission is to make classical ballet accessible and it started with our sensory friendly initiative," Dziak said. "Every main stage performance that we do, we dedicate one performance special for a sensory-friendly audience. The lights are on, sound is down and everybody's kind of free to be themselves … That kind of developed into a community engagement program, a diversity program, so we've kind of branched out from that little spark of accessibility." The school adaptation was designed to meet social-emotional learning content standards for schools. It was designed with help from Amherst literacy coach Breanna Carden. Carden, who was coached by Dziak as a child, said the educational resources have a song-by-son recap and discussions for students. Classes at Amherst Junior high participated in the program, including a virtual sensory simulator, experiencing "Because of You" from Lucas' perspective. Dziak said there are grants available to help bring the program to schools. For more information on educator resources, email leanna@northpointeballet.org. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.