Katie Suggitt dreamed of dancing ballet like her twin sister, Emily.
But the then 3-year-old with cerebral palsy could only watch on Saturday mornings as Emily pulled on her pink leotard and gathered up her ballet slippers.
It was only after Emily's first ballet recital that their mother, Sarah Nixon-Suggitt, decided Katie should get to be a ballerina, too.
"She sat on my knee throughout that recital and she kept pointing to herself, showing me that she wanted to be up there dancing like her sister," Nixon-Suggitt recalls.
But there were no classes for girls like Katie, whose condition makes it hard for her to walk and stand on her own. Nixon-Suggitt, together with Katie's occupational therapist, Barbara MacDonald, decided to change that by starting Toronto's first ballet class for girls with physical challenges.
And now, 18 months later, the Saturday morning class is full of giggling girls with cerebral palsy eager to learn ballet basics. It is the highlight of their week.
"The best thing, the beautiful thing, is this lets Katie be like every other girl," says Nixon-Suggitt. "We know these girls with special needs can do it, too. They just do it a little bit differently."
On a recent sunny Saturday morning, the girls begin their class by sitting in a circle on the studio's dark tile floor. A teenage volunteer from Turning Pointe Academy, the local ballet school that hosts the class and where Emily also takes lessons, sits behind each student, ready to help with her movements.
That is great.
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