If the rules aren’t fair for everyone, then we must change them for the better.
“Dancing Rules,” the twenty-fourth episode of PBS Kids’ City Island, calls for the audience to consider how barriers to accessibility violate one of the most sacred values held by children – fairness.
City Island is a series of educational short-form animated videos, set in a city where every object is alive. The series follows Watt (Kimia Bephoornia), a living light-bulb, as he explores his home and helps everyone he meets.
When the series curriculum advisor Liz Hinde shared a civics prompt exploring when rules must be changed, creator Aaron Augenblick and animation director Katie Wendt thought about accessibility. “We pretty quickly landed on the idea that historically, rules haven’t always treated people with disabilities fairly, and that it would be great if we could show that old rules can be reexamined and changed for the better,” Wendt said in an interview with Disability Belongs.
In “Dancing Rules,” Watt and some of his friends take a ballet class, where they meet Lacey Rollerskate. As an anthropomorphized roller skate, Lacey resembles a wheelchair user.
“We knew we wanted to place Lacey in a situation where she could excel at something she loves to do, but the current rules would create an impediment for her to succeed,” said Augenblick. “For a character on wheels, a dance class that teaches leg movements seemed like a perfect fit. Also, dance class is a very relatable situation for most kids, which is always important. The visual of a living roller skate was a very clear parallel to the experience of a child in a wheelchair.”
“Lacey sees that the existing rules for ballet in the classroom don’t currently include her, and she’s self-assured enough to let her teachers know that she trusts them to find a solution to that problem,” added Wendt.
Ali Stroker, who voices Lacey, uses a wheelchair as well.
“This opportunity to voice a dancer who has a disability means so much to me!” she said in an interview with Disability Belongs. “As a dancer with a disability, you come up with your own physical vocabulary and it feels so good to know that it is represented, and that young people understand that dancing can be really diverse!”
Stroker is the first wheelchair using actor to appear on Broadway. She went on to become the first wheelchair user to be nominated for and to win a Tony Award, which she hopes will encourage other disabled children to explore the arts as a career.
“I always hope that creating authentic representation for the disabled community will give disabled children the confidence to pursue a career in the arts,” she said. “I think disability is one of the most powerful forms of storytelling!”
Samuel Krauss, an alumnus of the Disability Belongs™ National Leadership Program, consulted with PBS Kids on the making of this short. As a creative consultant, he discussed his own experiences with theaters that created “an environment of access and equity,” saying this episode showcases an important conflict that “highlights the importance of access to education for disabled folk.” Krauss credits his 18 years of education in the arts with his ability to work within the entertainment industry today.
In the short, Lacey is unable to perform the high kick that all the other students practice, as she has no legs. When she asks if there are any ballet moves she can do, her teachers are encouraging but uncertain. Consulting with a walking ballet manual named Manny, they say that dancing with wheels is “just not in the rules.”
With the help of Ollie the Scooter, however, Lacey convinces the ballet teachers that people on wheels can dance too, and she goes on to dance with Watt and his friends in their recital, where the two agree that this might now be “their thing,” showing that disabled people can excel when their access needs are met, a message that is amplified by being voiced by a wheelchair user who has herself excelled in performance arts.
Augenblick and Wendt hope that children, both disabled and nondisabled, will learn that you can question the rules when they do not benefit everyone.
“People who voice their needs in our society do not need to be seen as ‘troublemakers’ or ‘complainers.’” Augenblick said. “Protest is a necessary facet of democracy, not an outlier. Lacey presents her objection in a friendly and thoughtful way. In response, the teachers respond with empathy and make the necessary adjustments to their system. This is an example of democracy that I think we all can aspire to.”
“There are characters in this short, the ballet teachers, who have never had a student ‘with wheels’ before, and as a result it never occurred to them that the rules that they were living by were actually excluding people with disabilities,” Wendt added. “I really wanted to help kids be more aware of that idea, that the things that many of us take for granted might not be the best for people with different abilities or experiences than our own, but that it’s also very possible for us to make things better for everyone.”
Lacey was authentically cast, rather than being voiced by a nondisabled actor.
“The insight that Ali Stroker brought to the character was invaluable,” Augenblick said. “She shared emotions and experiences she had with us during the recording, which directly influenced her character.”
“The reality is, if you live your life with the disability, your perspective, life experience and emotional landscape is just different than someone who is able bodied,” added Stroker, who also played both of the teacher characters, allowing her to experiment with different voices.
“Authenticity is important, even when the character is a roller-skate,” Krauss added. “The creative team for the show really championed that notion from the start. They really had the spirit of access and equity baked into their team beforehand. From implementing ideas via text to animation, they were committed to executing the story with a disability-centered gaze.”
Ultimately the title of the short “Dancing Rules” speaks to the central conflict of the episode, where the “rules” of ballet are excluding Lacey and must be changed.
“Disabled people deserve the same access and opportunities that all people have,” Augenblick emphasized. “Accessibility should be a top priority for all of us. Any places or situations that create obstacles for disabled people need to be adjusted as soon as possible. Our short reflects this idea.”
