The Workshops

The Inclusive Dance Workshop Series

The Inclusive Dance Workshop Series is a community-led gathering of movers of all kinds. Each session, different facilitators and guest artists lead the group through an exploration of dancemaking tools, dance techniques, and improvisational exercises, from ballet to improvisation to voguing. Co-founded by local dance artists and disability community organizers in 2019, Sydney Erlikh and Maggie Bridger, the Inclusive Dance Workshops provide an opportunity for local people with disabilities to develop community, explore movement, build physical capacity and develop an artistic perspective outside of mainstream dance classes, which are not set up to accommodate bodily difference. 

The goal of our workshops is to intentionally build a dance space grounded in disability culture, where bodies and minds of all types feel welcomed and valued. We structure our classes to be flexible, accessible, free, and come-as-you-are.   

We offer weekly online workshops in partnership with Chicago's independent living center, Access Living. Additionally, Inclusive Dance Workshops partners with local organizations like Kids Enjoying Exercise Now, the Center for Enriched Living, the Chicago Parks District and others to provide dance workshops to children and adults with and without disabilities.

Our Fall 2024 weekly Wednesday workshops begin on September 25, 2024 and run through December 4, 2024. There will be an in-person only workshop on October 16 2024 at High Concept Labs, and October 30, and November 13, will be hybrid online and in person at High Concept Labs. There will be no workshop on November 27, 2024. All workshops meet from 6:30-8pm and include AI captioning in zoom. Learn more and register below.

Community Leadership

Maggie Bridger

Picture of Maggie, a fat white woman with short brown hair wearing a light blue nightgown. She wears a light blue heating pad strapped around her stomach and holds the cord of the heating pad, which blurs and it stretches toward and ultimately past the frame. A brown radiator is just visible behind Maggie.

Maggie Bridger (she/her) is a sick and disabled dance artist, crafter, and scholar. Her work focuses on reimagining pain through the creative process, often using craft to infuse care, access, and interdependence into the making and production of performance. She is a Fellow Artist in Residence at High Concept Labs where she premiered a new work, Scale, in May 2023 and curates LabE, a new program designed to platform and support Chicago’s disabled dancemakers. Maggie was most recently selected as a 2023 artist-in-residence with Chicago Dancemakers Forum’s Production Residency Project. Learn more at www.maggiebridger.com.

Erin Compton

Erin a white woman with down syndrome smiles at the camera with her arms crossed.

History buff and dancer with UDF. With UDF she has performed in “Monitrice Sway” at the Plant in 2022,Arc of IL 2023 Annual Conference, and for 500+ people at the IASSIDD World Congress. In 2022 Erin Performed in Joffrey’s The Nutcracker. She participated in the Young Choreographer’s Project Los Angeles and is the Miss Amazing National Runner Up Jr. Teen Queen. In 2023, she performed at Gymnaestrada in Amsterdam. She is one of the youngest members to serve on the Illinois State Rehabilitation Council, representing students with disabilities transitioning from high school to their futures. She was named 1 of 6 SARTAC Self Advocacy Resource and Technical Assistance Center Fellows in the Country for her project “Accessibility of Wellness”. She presented on inclusion and Supported Decision Making at conferences, including the IL Statewide Transition Conference and the Division for Early Childhood Conference. In 2024, she traveled to South Africa to perform at the ADDN JOMBA! Festival. 

Sydney Erlikh

A headshot of Sydney, a white woman with long blonde hair. She smiles into the camera and wears a blue, sparkly sweater over a white shirt.

Sydney Erlikh (she/her) is a doctoral candidate in Disability Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago. She was recently selected by the American Scandinavian Foundation Fellow 22-23 for her research on dance and disability to create a multi-sited ethnography on inclusive dance groups that have dancers with intellectual disabilities. Sydney taught  in New York City and California, where she began her journey into inclusive dance education training in DanceAbility and with AXIS dance teacher training. She choreographed and performed in the films Shared-Time 20, the Full Radius Dance project Response Film 21, and Moods in Three Movements 21. She was selected as a SeeChicagoDance Critical Writing Fellow in 2020 and recently published in the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies. In 2021 she participated in the Harvard Mellon School of Theater and Performance Studies Research. Sydney currently serves on the CounterBalance planning committee and NDEO’s dance and disability task force.

Alex Neil-Sevier

A headshot of Alex a white woman with short light brown hair looking up into the camera.

Alex Neil-Sevier is a dance educator based in Chicago, IL. Alex holds a Bachelor’s in Dancemaking from Columbia College Chicago and a Master’s in Public Policy from DePaul University. Her graduate work explored using existing social infrastructure as incubators for creative placemaking. Alex’s passion is working with youth to help them find their voices through movement. She is proud to have worked with movers of all ages in both traditional and nontraditional dance settings. 

Stefanie Piatkiewicz

A black and white photo of Stephanie smiling, a white woman with long brown hair pulled back.

Stefanie Piatkiewicz’s (B.A. Dominican University, M.A. & GL-CMA Columbia College Chicago) choreography has been featured at Hamlin Park Theater, in Links Hall’s THAWALLS, and Dance Chicago’s New Moves. She has choreographed several musicals, including Schoolhouse Rock Live! for Dominican University, as well as My Fair Lady, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Pippin, and Ragtime for Concordia University. Piatkiewicz is a yoga, dance and movement educator, and is a 2019 Certified DanceAbility International Teacher. 



Lauren Sheely

A closeup of Lauren, a white woman with a shirt, brown hair, and red lipstick, smiling against a red backdrop.

A chronically ill dancemaker, teaching artist, and dramaturg from Chicago, Lauren Sheely’s work explores the bodily manifestations of invisible illness and finding joy in all manners of movement. Lauren is a co-facilitator for the weekly Inclusive Dance Workshop series and a regular collaborator with Unfolding Disability Futures. Her writing on dance has been published in the Performance Response Journal. Lauren holds a BA in Theatre and Performance Studies from Grinnell College and an MA in Performance Studies from the University of Chicago.