Audience brought to tears after Central Texas girl with disabilities dances alongside her best friend
AXTELL, Texas (KWTX) - A Central Texas girl with disabilities got a chance to dance alongside her best friend on stage at a recital in a heartwarming performance that left the entire audience in tears.
Dancer Buggy Hall, 12, choreographed the entire dance to Bruno Mar’s “Count on Me” to include Addie Wolfe, 9, who is in a wheelchair.
Addie was born with significant chromosomal abnormalities which left her developmentally delayed.
Her mom, Stephanie, who grew up a dancer, said she’d always dreamed of her daughter dancing but didn’t think it would ever happen.
“Addie has disabilities that she was born with and never in my wildest dreams did I ever think she would dance,” Stephanie said. “As a former dancer myself, I always dreamed of having a daughter that would dance upon a stage and just shine like the girl I knew she would, but unfortunately I didn’t ever see that happening with Addie, but Addie’s friend Buggy did.”
Buggy dances at Beauty N Grace Studio in Axtell. She’s been friends with Addie for years as her mom was Addie’s night nurse.
Buggy got the idea to include Addie in a duet after seeing others with disabilities performing at a competition.
“I really wanted to do a dance with my best friend,” Buggy told KWTX.
Buggy got to work choregraphing the perfect dance for the pair.
The friends got together for two weeks to practice and when performance time came at University High School, they nailed it.
Buggy started the dance by pushing Addie’s wheelchair on stage.
She then perfectly danced around Addie, helping her control the wheelchair as the dancing duo did circles.
Buggy would take Addie’s hands and help her use them to dance.
Buggy even hugged and kissed Addie during the performance as the song appropriately talked about friendship and counting on one another.
“I wanted Addie to be able to experience a recital and to be able to dance on a stage, because I knew she wouldn’t be able to be that,” Buggy said.
Addie is not a student at the dance studio, but owners never hesitated to let her be a part.
Owner Amy Gordon said the performance touched everyone.
“She has a heart of gold and was so excited to dance with her best friend on stage,” Gordon said. “She loves so hard.”
Stephanie posted a short clip of the video online which garnered more than 230,000 views in a couple of days.
She said there’s something very special about what a 12-year-old did for not only her daughter, but people with disabilities everywhere.
“It meant so much to me,” Stephanie said. “Not only living the dream that I had hoped for her, but for living her own dreams and being unapologetic for it and the best part of it was Addie wasn’t invited to dance just for the sake of inclusion, but because of the deep friendship that she and her friend Buggy share together and to me that made it all the more special.”
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