FOX 35 Care Force: Barry Johnson teaches dance class for children with disabilities

FOX 35 Care Force honors dance instructor Barry Johnson

The FOX 35 Care Force is recognizing the work of Barry Johnson, a Brevard County dance instructor who is making a difference in the lives of children with disabilities. Johnson leads a special class at the Melbourne Ballroom. 

MELBOURNE, Fla. - For the past ten years at the Melbourne Ballroom, Barry Johnson has led a special dance class known as the Shake, Rattle and Rollers.

Once a week, dancers and their caretakers take to the dance floor to learn a variety of routines.

"We are doing a tango routine, which is why we are dressed in our red and black today to the song Hernando’s Hideaway," Johnson said. "We took real tango steps that I would teach to anybody coming in and we modify them to work with the chairs and how to manipulate them."

Students in wheelchairs and walkers along with help from their mother or caretaker glide down the dance floor.

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Darlene Cristofaro and her daughter Dominique have been coming since 2016.

"She has seizures every day," her mother said. "Many every day – so it’s really changed our life. I want to give her quality of life and I do as much as we can."

Dominique wasn’t always in a wheelchair. As a child she could walk, talk, swim and ride her bike.

"At about 13 she had a seizure, and then she kept dropping, and we were wondering what was going on," Darlene Cristofaro said. "She got diagnosed with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome – a drug-resistant epilepsy. From that point on, she seemed to regress slowly over time until we’re at the point now she will be 37 at the end of April, and now we’re unable to do anything on our own at all."

Her mother, along with several other caretakers, approached Johnson at the Melbourne Ballroom about starting a special class for them.

"He gave it a chance," Cristofaro said. "No one else would even give us a chance at it, and he said yes."

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And now once a week, the mother-daughter duo hit the dance floor together.

"This is my favorite part of the week," Johnson said. "It allows them to express emotions that they normally couldn’t or go to a place inside their head where they can relax. Doing something, moving your body, using your brain."

"She looks around at everybody and every once in a while you can get a smile out of her – she used to smile all the time," Cristofaro said. "Barry has been wonderful and super patient and just likes to have a ton of fun with the kids."

"They’re always happy," Johnson said. "They come through the door. They know that there’s going to be music. They know that there’s going to be fun."

Johnson said more are welcome to join the class. He said he plans to start a nonprofit to help expand dance opportunities for more students.