On Oct. 30, a dance recital was held in Campus Center Building to bring awareness to a neurological condition known as Chiari Malformation.
“Basically, the bottom part of your brain, the cerebellum, sinks down into the spinal cord,” organizer Grace Ballard said. “What that does is that it can create an increase of pressure in the brain. So the idea of the surgery is to relieve the pressure.”
Ballard is a senior at ETSU who was diagnosed with a Chiari Malformation when she was younger. Ballard said that she had a decompression surgery to help treat it.
“I went to Vanderbilt for my surgery,” Ballard said. “I was in the hospital for two days, and they said, ‘You’re better at home than in the hospital with infections,” so they sent me home.”
Ballard said she decided to put on the dance recital because, as a dancer, dance was something that was like a home for her. She started planning the dance recital around the end of the spring semester, and she and her dancers rehearsed weekly.
“I met all of them through the ETSU dance team,” Ballard said. “We met at the dance team, and we take classes together, so it’s always fun to have classes with your friends.”
For dancer Rachel Crabtree, participating in the recital was a no brainer.
“When Grace asked me if I would like to be a part of it, it wasn’t even really a question for me,” Crabtree said. “She’s one of my best friends, and I wouldn’t want to donate my time doing anything else.”
Crabtree said that the dances in the recital were choreographed by Grace, as well as the other members of the dance recital. Music in the recital included songs by James Arthur, Coldplay and Mumford and Sons. Crabtree said her favorite dance was “Resilience,” which included music from Charity Gayle, Lewis Capaldi and Matt Corby.
“We were all dancing together,” Crabtree said. “It was really empowering.”
Audience member Kate Smith also has a Chiari Malformation, and she found the recital encompassed everything as a whole about Chiari Malformation.
“I think it’s a great way as a whole to kind of demonstrate stuff like this,” Smith said. “Especially for people who don’t know medical terms. I grew up in dance, so it’s a good way to kind of explain things in an artistic way. I think it was great.”
Ballard hopes that the audience members were able to realize what happens to people with a Chiari Malformation through her recital.
“I don’t think people always realize the severity the Chiari Malformation can cause,” Ballard said. “In my case, I was blessed to not have that severe [of a] case, but I know people who have worse cases. They have black outs in vision, awful headaches, leakage of fluids and shunts put in their brains for the fluid.”
