Saticoy ‘Wiz Kids’ Stay in Step to a Rhythm They Can Barely Hear

Within Saticoy Elementary School’s dreary complex of olive green buildings, eight children suddenly leaped from their seats in the auditorium, took their places on stage and began to move to music they could barely hear.

Their eyes were fixed straight ahead--on their teacher, Linda Pashky--who cued them with the tilt of her head, a hand gesture or, when all else failed, the steps of the dance itself.

The students at this North Hollywood school--all hearing-impaired with problems ranging from moderate to severe--were rehearsing for their debut today at the International Very Special Arts Festival in Washington.

They call themselves the Wiz Kids, a name derived from the music they use for their routines: “If I Only Had a Brain,” “Over the Rainbow” and “I’m a Mean Ole Lion”--all from the movie “The Wizard of Oz” or the Broadway musical, “The Wiz.”

The arts festival, which began Wednesday and will continue through Sunday, is the first of its kind, including more than 1,000 participants from 50 countries around the world. It is to the arts what the Special Olympics are to athletics, providing the disabled a forum for expressing themselves in drama, music, dance, painting and literature.

“It takes a lot of guts to go up there and perform, especially if you don’t hear the music,” observed Marta Montero, the mother of 8-year-old Wiz Kid Barbara Chesgreen. “If you’d pay me a million dollars, I wouldn’t do what these children do--and I can hear.”

The Wiz Kids are among three acts chosen from a field of 10 to represent California at the festival. Members of a national committee made the selection after reviewing videotapes of previous performances and trying to ensure that each of the performing and visual art groups had equal representation. The cost of the trip, including air fare, totaled $930 per student--money that was raised through donations from groups such as The Variety Club, which contributed $4,700 and the Lockheed Corp. which gave $4,000.

In addition to the Wiz Kids, the California chapter of Very Special Arts will feature Tim Baley, 36, of Anaheim, who was born with cerebral palsy and is developmentally disabled, who will play concert piano, and Sarah Anderson, a wheelchair-bound 12-year-old from Rancho Cucamonga, who will portray a rose as it blossoms in dance with her teacher Zina Bethune.

Although he is not officially part of the California delegation--attending at the request of the national committee--Tony Melendez, 27, of Chino, is also scheduled to perform at the festival. Melendez, who was born without arms, achieved widespread fame after he captivated Pope John Paul II by playing the guitar with his feet during the Pontiff’s visit to Los Angeles two years ago.

Founded by the Kennedy family in 1974, Very Special Arts is a worldwide organization dedicated to enriching the lives of the disabled through a variety of programs such as the New Visions Dance Project, which teaches movement skills to the blind, or the Senior Playwright’s Project, which helps the elderly transform their personal stories and anecdotes into scripts, some of which are later staged with professional actors.

More than 1 million people in the United States participate in Very Special Arts activities. They share their work and celebrate their accomplishments at non-competitive community festivals each year. And although national festivals are scheduled every five years, no international event has ever been organized before.

“It doesn’t scare me,” declared Wiz Kid Ivan Tover, 7, of his scheduled performances today and tomorrow at the Kennedy Center and the Capitol Children’s Museum.

Even the prospect of meeting President Bush, which he proclaims the most exciting part of the trip, fails to daunt him. And that, says his teacher, is what Very Special arts is all about.

“They get this feeling of self-confidence like, Wow, I’m really something,” Pashky said. “Some of the real quiet ones won’t do anything else, but they’ll get up there and dance.”

Indeed, 7-year-old Bertalan Horvath, a recent immigrant from Budapest, Hungary, rarely utters a word to his classmates, but he’s among the first to pull on his tap shoes when it’s time to rehearse.

In addition to Bertalan, Ivan and Barbara, the Wiz Kids dance troupe features Mindy Cano, 8; Sandra Caballero, 7; Clifton Chalk, 7; Sherwin Keh, 9; and Renee Palscios, 9.

All eight students are part of the Saticoy Dance Company, a group of 30 children--hearing and hearing-impaired--who perform at school functions and other community events.

The dance program at Saticoy, which includes lessons in ballet, jazz and tap, began in 1981 with one class of hearing-impaired students. That year, the troupe asked to participate in the school’s spring musical, an annual gala that is staged at a nearby junior high school because of the large crowd it attracts.

Fear of Ridicule

But the music director was reluctant to let the hearing-impaired children participate, fearing they would be ridiculed by the other students.

Pashky persisted and--after showing the director a videotape of the group’s performance at a Very Special Arts Festival--secured her students a place on the spring program.

About 600 parents, teachers and students attended the event that year. And when members of the Saticoy Dance Company took a bow, nearly all of them stood to applaud.

“I was just so thrilled,” Pashky recalled. “And afterwards, the kids were so proud of themselves. They thought they had really done something spectacular that all those people would stand up and clap.”

Said Denise Vail Lapp, executive director for the California chapter of Very Special Arts, “I think it is incredibly important that arts are available to kids and adults. Culture is who we are, it’s what we are. Sometimes we can’t describe something, but we can get on a stage and perform it. And when it comes to people with disabilities, sometimes it’s their only means of communicating.”

Vail Lapp fondly recalls the story of an 8-year-old autistic child who uttered her first words at a Very Special Arts festival five years ago.

The Fonz

“The Fonz, the Fonz,” she squealed upon spotting Henry Winkler, the star of the former hit television series, “Happy Days.”

Montero is confident that the international festival in Washington will hold the same allure for her daughter, Barbara.

“At this age,” Montero said, “to be performing at the Kennedy Center, to go to the White House and meet the President, she will never forget this trip.”