Marilyn Rogers has danced with America’s top ballet companies, but she found her greatest achievement not onstage,
but rather in the classroom, teaching disabled children and adults about the wonders of the art form.

Since 1982, Rogers has directed the Special Spotlight Theatre. Housed in the Henegar Center in Melbourne, the theater
offers dance instruction for disabled individuals, regardless of handicap.

“We work with the sight-, hearing- or mentally impaired, with students on wheelchairs and walkers,” Rogers said. “We’ve had students as young as 7 and we had one student who was 78. He was wonderful.”

Before she became a teacher, Rogers was first a dancer, performing with the American Ballet Theatre, the Ballet Russe and the Ballet Repertory.

“I had danced my whole life,” she said. “After I finished dancing, I opened a dance school in New York and then another.”

The school focused on honing the talents of professional students, but a couple of dancers had siblings with disabilities. They asked Rogers to work with them. She was hooked.

“It gave me a great sense of accomplishment,” she said. “Students get such a great sense of self-esteem from this,” Rogers said.
“When they start, some of them don’t even want to look at themselves in the mirror, but after they get involved, they just blossom.”

The theater’s 35 students are a busy lot, performing at different venues around Brevard County. However, November is their big month, the time when they take center stage at Henegar Center for their annual dance recital. This year’s show, “Cirque du Ballet,”
takes its cue from the popular acrobatics pageant to offer an edgy, colorful performance.

“We get very involved with costumes and backdrops,” Rogers said. “I find that, after their first show, the students are hooked.”

Funding the nonprofit theater is always a struggle. Support from the Golden Steppers dance troupe, chiropractor Dr. Frankie Rinaldi and the Margaret Binz Foundation helps tremendously. Students pay $40 a month for classes, but the economy has been tough on many student families.

“Some of the parents have lost their jobs, and it’s hard for them to afford the classes,” Rogers said.

Special Spotlight Theatre welcomes volunteers and tax-deductible donations to the program, as well as new students, disabled or not. Call 321-951-2420.