"Disabled Mount Sinai Patients Learn To Tap Dance With Their Hands From Former Rockette" - Molly Newman-Crane & Larry McShane
Former Rockette, Mary Six Rupert, teaches a special dance class at The Mount Sinai Hospital for disabled patients called “Tap Dancing Hands Down,” where participants perform steps with two hands instead of ten toes. “Some of them used to be dancers, before whatever their injury was. So for them, it brings back their joy of dancing that they thought might never have. Some of them used to tap, and they thought those days were over,” said Rupert. Participants include patients disabled by stroke, brain and spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis. The class remains the first and only one of its kind in Manhattan. Rather than tap shoes, Rupert hand-makes each of her “dancers” a pair of “tap gloves” – fitted with the taps from a dancing shoe.
- The Mount Sinai Hospital