Community Corner
Maya Milenovic Workman—Empowering Kids With Special Needs
Every person has an individual talent.
Maya Milenovic Workman, artistic director of The Montclair Academy of Dance and Laboratory of Music, makes it a personal mission to make sure everyone has a voice.
While growing up in her native Slovenia, Maya witnessed her older brother’s struggle with deafness. “He missed out on everything. He never finished higher education school, and his opportunities became so much smaller," she said. "No one was really willing to stand by these children.”
As a tribute to her brother, in January 2011, Maya premiered her multi-media production, I Hear With My Eyes, at the Slovene National Theater in Slovenia. “The piece is not only about helping the deaf, it’s about us, the hearing, and the awareness that the deaf are not just silent observers," she said.
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In 2012 Maya will be taking on special needs again with her production, Guernic 2012. The show will feature a lead dancer with cerebral palsy, and through stage ‘regression’ deals with issues of chaos and feeling misunderstood. Guernica will be performed in Slovenia in August of 2012, and is the recipient of a grant from the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and The Cultural Capitol of Europe in Maribor, Slovenia. Maya’s hope is to take the piece to the United States in 2013.
Maya has the opportunity to work with special needs children as part of the partnership that the Montclair Academy of Dance and Laboratory of Music enjoys with the Montclair Community Pre-K. For the past two years she’s been offering classes for children with special needs at her studio in Montclair.
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As with all of her students, Maya believes that every person has an individual talent. Classes are specifically designed to encourage children to feel comfortable in their own bodies. The Academy holds Moving Theater classes that combine folk tales, poetry, and speech with movement, encouraging children to get comfortable with their voices, and future leadership roles in a public setting.
For more information on classes, contact:
The Montclair Academy of Dance and Laboratory of Music
40 South Fullerton & the Crescent
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