How GiGi’s Taught Me To Love Dance Again

Allison was watching the New Holland Parade in the fall of 2021 because her oldest daughter was in the marching band. Allison was not paying much attention to the other parades or floats when her husband, James nudged her and said, “Allison, you would be good at that; It says Down syndrome.” James took a flyer from someone walking with the GiGi’s Playhouse Lancaster float.

Allison ended up looking up what GiGi’s Playhouse was to see if they were hiring. She certainly was interested because her sister has special needs and she worked with kids with special needs for years. Since they weren’t hiring, Allison found out she could start volunteering. She started volunteering by being a 1:1 literacy tutor at GiGi’s. She was paired up with children with Down syndrome and worked on strengthening their letter recognition and pre-reading skills through books, songs, and movement activities. She was willing to do whatever it took to motivate them, demonstrated through the tutoring session where she rode a tricycle through GiGi’s with one of her students. She loved volunteering at GiGi’s and soon got her husband involved as a photographer, as he absolutely loves capturing candid moments.  

Allison’s passion is dance. She was classically trained for 16 years. Allison enjoyed dancing and was really good at it. She was actually spotted for her dance skills in middle school and had an offer to dance professionally, however she turned down the offer because she wanted to have a normal life. She’s glad she did because she doesn’t think she would have found GiGi’s if she went professional.

For many years, she continued to dance and taught off and on at various studios. Over time, she began to lose her love of dance that she had once had. She also soon began realizing that her body was not as agile as it used to be. Her knees began hurting her, so she had to pull back from dancing as much as she used to.  

Allison’s not sure how or when exactly her passion of dance was shared with the volunteers at GiGi’s, but she volunteered to launch the GiGi’s Dance program at GiGi’s Playhouse Lancaster. She quickly realized it was a good fit for her because she could use her passion to help those with special needs, while also being mindful of her own body, with her increasing pain and decreasing strength. Over the past two years of being the dance instructor for GiGi’s Dance, she has seen the participants grow in so many ways through the program. She has been able to help teach the participants to dance at different skills levels and to perform skills dancers in a typical dance class would learn. For example, she has seen growth with dancers learning to turn with spotting, which is a difficult skill.

Even though Allison is teaching the participants the skill of dance on a weekly basis at GiGi’s, the participants have also taught her something huge: they have taught her to love dance again. She felt that there was a time when she lost the passion she had for awhile and the participants at GiGi’s helped make her love dance again because of how much they love it.

Allison has had the opportunity to teach a GiGi’s Dance Kids and Adults group at GiGi’s Playhouse Lancaster for the past two years. She has choregraphed and taught six dances to them, incorporating some ballet, tap, modern, and hip hop. She has performed on stage with her dancers at Elizabethtown College for their Emotion Senior Showcase, the Best Buddies Friendship Walk at Elizabethtown College, the Casino Royale Gala, and the Pancakes & Pajamas Christmas Party.

Allison shares that choosing the songs and choreography for the dance performances allows her to be creative. It’s good if she can make a dance in her head within the first 16 counts of the song. At GiGi’s, she makes dance fun. She also makes sure to use many of the same repeating steps in the dances, while incorporating some new moves as well, as she is learning how individuals with Down syndrome learn dance best. Allison has noticed that ballet-type dance seems to have a slower melody and she starts to lose the dancers after awhile. She has realized they like to be involved in dance performances to songs that are upbeat. Allison can relate to this, as people always said she has a Ballet Allergy and it was her least favorite type of dance.

Allison describes what it feels like to be on stage during performances with the GiGi’s Dancers; She loves seeing it all come together on the stage. She loves seeing their faces and seeing them get excited. Even if she feels she messes up part of the dance, she feels that the participants know what they are doing and she feels like their memory skills are remarkable. She will vividly remember feeling the high energy, positive feedback and cheering the dance performers got from the huge Elizabethtown College audience after their first performance, Rain on Me, when they all had matching yellow shirts!  She felt this first performance was so important because it showcased their abilities and showed our community how capable people with Down syndrome are!

Through the years, Allison has seen her GiGi’s dancers achieve great things and their abilities are changing. Some of them are moving faster as they dance or move across the floor. With others, Allison is noticing certain strengths and skill levels in individual participants and then she takes the opportunity to focus on that for them individually. She is proud of their growth. Some dancers are being able to pivot and improve their pivot within just a few practices, when she thought it was going to be harder for them to master.  

Last year, when preparing for the Pancakes and Pajamas dance for the Kids group, Allison got the idea to get tap shoes for each kid and teach them to tap dance in front of the crowd. Who gives tap shoes to a group of kids with Down syndrome? Allison does! She started asking around to work towards locating and securing a pair of tap shoes for each of her students. Her favorite style of dance is tap and she knew that the sounds in tap have a way of being therapeutic to some people, particularly to people with special needs. She wanted to try it and see what would happen. Most of all, she believed in her dancers! As she got all the tap shoes for the students, she also had to think of a place and a way for the students.  Allison called on her husband, James, this time to acquire scrap wood from work to cut into square for each student. Her and her kids painted them and added each dancer’s name. It was a place they could dance, hear their sounds, and be safe because they wouldn’t slip.

So how did it turn out? Amazing! She recalls that each student seemed to pick it up so quickly. They could have fun and hear the noise coming from their own foot. The performance went so well and will be one she will always remember! She thinks it was one of her favorites because it was a totally different style and nobody in the audience was expecting it. She remembers getting so many compliments on the dance choreography. She also got lots of comments about the Adult performance this past year at Pancakes and Pajamas because again, she choreographed a dance that would ‘wow’ the crowd. The adults came out stomping and tapping sticks to the little drummer boy, then it quickly changed into hip hop and even included a dance battle!

Allison recalls specific Best of All moments, such as when her oldest GiGi’s Dance participant, Brenda, started imitating Allison and counting them in each time they ran through the dance, “And a 5, 6, 7, 8!…” she would state right on cue. Allison would then start saying, “Brenda, count us in”, instead of doing it herself.

Another Best of All moment she recalls is one of her dancers Kevin. In his first year of dance, he had his mother by his side all the time. The following year, she started to notice his strengths and he started to pull away from his mom or push her to the side, so that he could dance by himself. Allison could tell he is the happiest person when he is dancing on stage and his character really shines through! Allison and his mom both notice that Kevin will follow the choreographed accurately and then add simple moves that are his own swing that make him stand out in skills and individuality.

A few facts about Miss Allison… She is from Jersey. She loves to dance and swim. When she’s not volunteering at GiGi’s, she is probably being a mom and chauffeuring her kids to band practices. She would recommend others to volunteer at GiGi’s; she is trying to get people to come all the time. Some of Allison’s background: She was raised with a sister with special needs, so she was always around that. Her mom was a nurse at a state school, who cared for adults with severe special needs. Since Allison was a dancer, she used to perform for the school for their valentines dance, Christmas performance, and dance parties. Her mom would get her out of school to dance instead. She learned a lot from her dance teacher, who is still practicing after 50 years. The teacher started teaching musicals and introducing dancing to children with special needs. Allison was able to help her teacher with one of the classes before she moved to PA. Once in PA, Allison always had an interest in opening up her own dance studio for those with special needs, however she did not have a chance to do it. She feels that her husband seeing the GiGi’s Playhouse Lancaster float in the New Holland Parade was just what she needed to find a community of people who could teach her to love dance again!

Thank you Allison!

If you would like to watch some of the dance performances, we would encourage you to check them out on our youtube channel!

Run Run Rudolph: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iWJKin9KpM

Drummer Boy: https://youtu.be/4JHsgYA9mcE

Kings and Queens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dNBzhFMo14&t=26s

Santa Clause is Coming to Town: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrnkzpWDw8k

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsKxaCxLYO4

Rain on Me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNw-tfT2TKc