WASHINGTON, May 26 (UPI) -- Redouan Ait Chiit, 21, has no right hip, a prosthetic leg and a right arm that stops at the elbow, but you should see him dance.
Known as BBoy Redo, Ait Chitt is one-fifth of ILL-Abilities, an international break dancing crew that lives by the motto, "No excuses. No limits."
Each member of the five-man group has adapted their perceived handicaps – deafness, physical deformations, amputated limbs -- turning them into assets on stage.
Last weekend the crew joined forces with VSA, the international organization on arts and disabilities, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington to showcase their talents and encourage their audience to push beyond the limits placed on them.
"You've got people here who have a wide range of disabilities but a wide range of abilities also," said Scott Stoner, vice president for education services with VSA.
VSA is an affiliate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the arts and works with organizations around the world to provide dance, theater and visual art programs to nearly 7 million people of varying ages and abilities.
Dance is healing and therapeutic, said Zazel O'Garra, a teaching artist fellow with VSA.
O'Garra, 48, was working as a dancer, actor and model in New York when a benign brain tumor left her with double vision and partial paralysis on her right side in December 2001. Determined to dance again, she fought her physical therapists to push her beyond their expectations for her.
"They want to keep you in your wheelchair," O'Garra said. "When I forced them to make me walk and put my leg up on the bar, they saw that I was different."
Now O'Garra is on the other side, teaching dance to people with disabilities and brain injuries, fighting to push them beyond what they think they are capable of.
