Dance and Disability, a brief biography
by Kari Ann Owen

penomee@value.net

In September 1993, the sciatic nerve running through my lower back and
down my right leg became so inflamed I could not walk.
A stranger I had been talking with about a stereo volunteered to come to
my home in the Wildcat Canyon section of East Richmond Heights and drive
me to the emergency room at Merrithew Memorial Hospital in Martinez.
I entered the emergency room in a wheelchair.
Five years later, I am teaching modern dance to a lady who has just
emerged from two years of enforced bed rest.
How, and why?
My greatest motivator in getting out and staying out of that wheelchair
has been a deep desire for healing, both physically and psychologically.
For my life has been spent in the wind: sometimes on horses, sometimes
on motorcycles, and sometimes in dance.
As a fat child, I was taunted for my weight by family and peers, and
sometimes deprived of food when hungry, and even spat on once from a
bus. To internalize this abuse to the exclusion of all else would have
been suicidal. So whenever I could, I not only dreamed about living in
the wind, but rode horses. After my birthparents abandoned me to
institutional care after an incestuous assault by my father, I met a
modern dance teacher whose faith in me was total, both artistically and
as a human being of worth.
Upon her wings I still ride, sharing the healing the Creator has brought
me. My hope is to share this healing with all who desire it.

Ms Owens web Page can be seen at http://pwp.value.net/penomee/penomee.html#top
go to it!

back to newsletter menu