Фонд Андреа Риззо отмечает 25-летие: танцевальная терапия помогает детям с онкологией и особыми потребностями

CHARLESTOWN— The Andrea Rizzo Foundation began with a condolence letter. A teacher wrote it in May 2002. Twenty-five years later, the idea inside it funds dance therapy for children with cancer and special needs in hospitals and schools across the country. Andrea Susanne Rizzo was 24 and living in East Hampton, Connecticut, when she died after being struck by a car on the Cross Bronx Expressway in the Bronx, New York, as her boyfriend changed a flat tire. Ironically, she had survived cancer as a baby. The driver, Colin Anderson, 57, was arrested and faced charges including manslaughter, DWI, and leaving the scene. The case was later adjudicated in court. Her mother, Susan Rizzo Vincent, said she made a deliberate choice about how to carry it. “I’ve always felt that anger would be self-destructive, and so my main goal was to be sure that he served time,” Rizzo Vincent said. “I knew that he did not go out that night intending to kill my daughter, but he did need to serve time,” she added. The focus, instead, of her grief — channeling energy to respond somehow — found purpose in a non-profit she started. It could fulfill Andrea’s dream of providing dance therapy to children with cancer and special needs and now looks toward its 25th anniversary next year. “This idea gave me something to grasp and move forward with in the wake of my only child’s death,” Vincent said in an interview this week. The idea came in part from a colleague who worked with Andrea. Author Terry Schimmel of South Kingstown taught alongside Andrea at Ashaway School, where Andrea held her first teaching job in special education. Their students overlapped. Schimmel said the younger teacher would stop by at the end of the day, and over time she became a mentor. “I came to love Andrea. She was so passionate and caring, wanting to do her best by each of her students and gave her all. Always smiling and vivacious, she won everyone’s heart,” Schimmel said. Schimmel knew the cancer story. Doctors had once doubted Andrea would walk again. She danced anyway, and after the phone call that May morning about her death, Schimmel sat down with pen and paper — as she does often — to map out her thoughts. “After Susan’s phone call, I took pen and paper in hand and wrote a long condolence letter to Susan, telling her how remarkable and special Andrea was and suggesting the idea of a foundation named after Andrea that would fulfill her dream — provide dance therapy to children battling cancer,” Schimmel said. “She planned to go back to school for dance therapy certification, but her life was cut short before she could fulfill that dream,” Schimmel said. Rizzo Vincent said, “This idea gave me something to grasp and move forward with.” This mother researched the field and reached Nina Pickett, pediatrics administrator at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where Andrea had been treated as a baby. Pickett opened the door. Dance therapist Suzi Tortora built the Dréa’s Dream program there. “(She) became our first dance therapist and created Dréa’s Dream program at MSK, and that is now a model for pediatric dance therapy nationwide,” Rizzo Vincent said. Registered or board-certified dance/movement therapists bring music and simple props, including scarves, balls, and wands, into hospital rooms and adapt each session to a child’s physical ability and emotional needs. The child leads. That control matters. Children facing cancer, disability, fear, or pain often have little command over their schedules, so the movement session gives them a chance to direct an experience and communicate without relying entirely on words. Rhythm becomes expression. Rizzo Vincent distinguishes the practice from recreation. “It is not just dancing or physical therapy because there is a psychotherapeutic element.” She calls the process ART. ART describes three steps. The therapist accesses emotion through expressive movement, encourages the child to release feelings such as fear or anger, and helps create a transformation in mood. The acronym guides each session. The foundation runs on volunteers, many of them the original board. Rizzo Vincent takes no salary. “Andrea reached friends, family, and children in a special way. She exuded love, and you felt it in her hugs,” Rizzo Vincent said.