Stephanie McGlynn and Megan Schirle of AXIS Dance company perform "Prayer," which they choreographed. Photo by Amy Snyder.

People with disabilities sometimes feel like they gotta dance. Some go to clubs and boogie. Some do-si-do. Young dancers heat up the floor at MDA summer camp. Others make dancing a major part of their lives.

If you find it strange that people with movement disorders would want to dance, just watch a few minutes of a performance or talk with an avid dancer with a neuromuscular disease. You'll quickly get a new understanding of what dance is -- and what it isn't.

Dancing isn't about feet.

"It's a very natural thing for me to want to move," says Megan Schirle of Berkeley, Calif. "If we're not moving in some way, we are not alive or aware."

Schirle was an avid athlete before facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy appeared during her teens. She continued playing sports for a while but ultimately found athletics too taxing.

About 10 years ago, she saw a performance by a group called AXIS Dance Company, which consists primarily of dancers who use wheelchairs. Schirle was intrigued and, since 1992, she's been a member of AXIS, based in Oakland.

For all dancers, dance is about using movement as a form of expression or communication. Well over a dozen active dance troupes across the country include people with disabilities.

These groups create their own works by imaginatively exploring what hands, arms, heads, shoulders, wheels and props can do. Subject matter is as varied as movement -- erotic tension, friendship, anger, humor, soul-searching, regret.

For example, in AXIS's "Tellings," five women, three of them in wheelchairs, describe feelings about their bodies through words and movements. Schirle pumps her arms, her upper body mimicking the motions of a runner as she describes her memory of "the last time I ran."

Other soloists explore body image, pregnancy, painful memories. Together they intone: "We are telling the story of the world.... We are dancing the story of the world."

Youngsters also enjoy the opportunity for self-expression that dance provides.

Julian Dombrowski, 16, of Tucson, Ariz., finds creative outlets in dancing, acting and writing poetry. He began taking dance classes several years ago at the suggestion of his physical therapist. The attraction was, "I like being with other people and getting to move my body. It helps take my mind off things."

In Julian's dance class performances, he says, "I drive my wheelchair around, forward and back. Sometimes I use a manual wheelchair and someone else pushes me."

Dance vividly illustrates the concept that a wheelchair is an extension of its user's body space. A dancer might slide out of a wheelchair or speed across the stage. Two people share a chair, or a partner lifts the dancer and places her into a chair.

The performers create exciting visual surprises involving light, color, sound, costume and movement. The line begun by the arm of one dancer continues in the leg of another. One dancer leans on another and they "walk" together. One person lies on the floor and hooks her feet on another's wheelchair and is pulled along.

Dancing is about joy.

Kitty Lunn and Christopher Nelson of Infinity Dance Theater perform "Last Night in the World." Photo by James Estrin.

Vincent Crum, 12, is one of 14 kids from P.S. 199 in New York who took part in the Kids on the Move project in the fall of 1997. All the kids were wheelchair users. Vincent has Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

"One of my teachers in school signed me up for it. And it was fun, too," Vincent says. Though he's moved onto junior high school this year, he wants to stay involved in dance.

His teacher, Kitty Lunn, is a dancer and actress who performs all over the world. She founded Infinity Dance Theatre, which creates dance rooted in principles of traditional dance, ballet and jazz.

"Sometimes one arm is doing a leg," she explains. "We use shifts in position, shifts in the body, that are right out of classical ballet."

Infinity's presentations sometimes involve storytellers, American Sign Language, singers or actors as well as dancers. Lunn performs with such fluidity in floor movements and with arms, knees and hands while sitting that her audience might be surprised to learn she's been paraplegic since 1987.

"The dancer inside me doesn't know or care that I fell down the stairs and have a spinal cord injury. She just wants to keep on dancing," Lunn says.

Dancing is about self-discovery and self-acceptance.

The participants in Kids on the Move get a taste of that feeling, too.

"This was an opportunity for these children to express themselves artistically and learn how to move their bodies in space and time in a way that nobody thought was possible," Lunn says.

"Vincent just blossomed. Possibly for the first time in his life, he had a positive experience in being singled out, rather than being singled out because of his disability. He has tremendous presence."

The Kids on the Move have performed at their school and in Central Park. In a number called "City City," they enter, turn slowly in circles, move side to side, wave and bow. In a duet, Vincent's partner sometimes spins his chair or lifts his arms.

Lunn explains, "Learning that they can learn was a very important element of this. Then mastering something and doing it well and receiving the applause and the acknowledgment changed some of their lives."

She adds, "They have such a sense of self that they didn't have before."

Julian, who has DMD, likes to take dance classes that are open to dancers with and without disabilities. His classes generally use popular music and his instructors adapt steps so that everyone can participate.

He also enjoys being part of a group performance: "I like the feeling of making people happy."

Dancers' physical capacities vary, and for those with neuromuscular diseases, they change over time. But there's always a way to dance.

Schirle, 40, says, "I like to think that even if my disability would have started earlier or even from birth, I'd be a dancer. I firmly believe that no matter what level of physical movement I might have in the future, there is that part of me that will always be a dancer and a mover."

Schirle recalls seeing a European dancer with a neuromuscular disease who used only her hands.

Dancing is about the heart.

Zina Bethune and Julissa LaFarga danced together on the MDA Telethon in 1993.

"What is so empowering and compelling for me about dance comes from the inside," Schirle says. "This movement and my self-expression are coming from within me, and my body will do as it does at whatever level of capacity and creativity I have."

In 1993, Julissa LaFarga of Los Angeles and her dance teacher, Zina Bethune, performed together on the national broadcast of the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon.

Julissa's mother, Maria LaFarga, says of her daughter, "She never thought that she could do it. Then she really enjoyed it. It makes her feel more secure and she knows she's able to do things."

Dance has provided both physical and psychological benefits for Julissa, 11, who has congenital MD.

"She loves music and likes to dance," her mother says. "When she dances with my other daughter and her friends, she makes movements with her shoulders and hands, her head. She moves the chair."

When the LaFargas go to a birthday party or family gathering, Julissa usually heads straight for the dance floor. "She says, 'Come on. Let's go dancing.'"