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At Old Dominion University, youth from across the region took the stage at the University Theatre for a dance recital unlike most others on campus. For many of the dancers, it was their first time performing on a stage.

The performers were participants in Monarchs Move Dance, a program created by Baillie Ollila, a second-year Ph.D. student in health and sport pedagogy with a concentration in adapted physical activity.

Monarchs Move Dance is a weekly adaptive dance program for youth with disabilities where participants explore movement, express themselves and enjoy being active together. The program is an addition to Monarchs Move, a monthly community-based movement program for youth with disabilities, that was launched in early 2025. 

Last fall, seven Monarchs Move Dance participants met weekly to learn choreography and work toward a recital. This semester, the dance program expanded to two weekly sessions with 17 dancers preparing for a spring recital.

Participants are supported by student volunteers, many of whom come from Old Dominion University programs in physical education, occupational, physical and recreation therapy. Baillie coordinates roughly 50 volunteers each semester across both programs.

Baillie said one of the most noticeable changes has been how the programs participants approach movement.

“The biggest thing we’ve seen is growth in confidence in movement,” Baillie said. “Kids come in saying they don’t know how to dance or they don’t want to try. By the end, they’re excited to be there and proud to show what they’ve learned.”

Baillie has also been a dancer since she was young, and that experience shaped her interest in using dance to create more flexible, expressive movement opportunities. She began building Monarchs Move soon after beginning her doctoral studies at Old Dominion University. Starting with a broader, general activities program held monthly on Saturdays allowed Baillie to build relationships with families and establish trust before expanding into more specialized programming, like the dance program.

Monarchs Move has also informed Baillie’s doctoral research, which focuses on how disabled adults experience dance and movement. Working directly with participants has helped shape how she thinks about instruction and adaptation.

“Research doesn’t always capture what movement experiences actually feel like,” Baillie said. “Seeing what adaptations are helpful and what are not helps guide how I approach the work.”

One takeaway has been the importance of avoiding assumptions about how participants should move. In Baillie’s classes, the goal is not to mimic set choreography exactly, but to allow participants to explore movement in ways that work for their own bodies.

Baillie credits faculty mentorship and campus partnerships with helping the program grow. Her advisor, Justin Haegele, Ph.D., encourages doctoral students to pursue research and community work that are aligned with their interests, while the Student Recreation and Well-Being Center and University Theatre provide space for practice sessions and performances.

Baillie’s doctoral studies are fully supported through  (Collaboratory for Adapted Physical Education Research), a grant funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs. This support allowed Baillie to focus on research and programming, while completing her coursework.

As both programs continue to grow, Baillie hopes to expand beyond youth offerings and increase partnerships with schools and organizations and encourage more student interns and volunteers to take part.

“There’s still a huge gap in dance and disability programs in community settings,” she said. “There’s a lot of room for growth.”

For now, her focus is on the dancers who just made the stage their own.

“It’s a really unique opportunity for anyone to be on stage,” Baillie said. “I’m excited for them to have that experience.”