When Chelsie Hill joined the team as a specialty choreographer for NBC’s “Wicked: One Wonderful Night," it wasn’t just a creative triumph — it was the continuation of a journey that has redefined what inclusion looks like in entertainment. Hill, who has been paralyzed from the waist down since high school, has built a life and career around movement, leadership and access through her work as a dancer, choreographer and founder of the Rollettes and the Rollettes Foundation.
Rollettes performing at World of Dance.
“Growing up, I knew I wanted to be a dancer,” she says. “I wanted to travel the world and be in music videos and just dance, be a backup dancer. But sustaining a spinal cord injury at 17 is something that was not, obviously, in my plans.”
The life-altering moment after a car accident forced Hill to think about her future as a dancer. While she was in a rehab facility, her father showed her a video of a woman dancing in a wheelchair on stage with Snoop Dogg. “I remember I was like, ‘Well, that's cool. Okay, I would do that differently, but I really like that, and I love how she does wheelie spins,” Hill recalls. “That kind of reignited my passion and my curiosity of what I could do.”
Chelsie Hill.
Soon, Hill was dancing again with her high school team, a turning point. She shares that experience “really ignited that flame of, ‘Oh, I can still dance.’ And without that, I don't know who I would be today, because dance as an able-bodied person taught me so much, but I also knew that maybe one day I wanted to do a dance studio and be a dance teacher. I wanted to be in the arts, but having a disability now, it's one of those things that has definitely shown me how strong I am, and the creative side of me has had to be like, ‘Okay, well, what next?’”
What followed was a new path marked by resilience and creativity. “There was never a handbook on how to create a wheelchair dance team or how to run the world's largest women's empowerment weekend for women and children with disabilities,” she says. “I've had to really fight to be like, I deserve to be here, and I deserve to tell you what my passion is.”
Hill’s incredible moves and choreography challenge long-standing assumptions about what dance can be. “A lot of the choreography that I learn, or that I'm in a class learning, is never based around a wheelchair user. It's never really a wheelchair user teaching another wheelchair user,” she explains. “I've had to fight to figure out how do I adapt choreography.”
While working with “Wicked” choreographer Christopher Scott for the NBC television special, she studied each sequence “from the waist up” before adjusting it for performer Marissa Bode and her singing needs. “I've not only had to adapt the choreography from an able-bodied perspective for a wheelchair user but then adapt it for someone to be able to sing and have the lung capacity to belt it out.”
Hill believes true inclusion in choreography is not about putting dancers with disabilities in the spotlight. Instead, it is about weaving them seamlessly into the performance. “I think we just fight to be not only on stage, but as a dancer, to blend in. I don't want choreographers or directors to think, ‘Oh, I need to bring in a wheelchair user, and if I do, then they have to be center stage.’ For instance, the Lady Gaga fan video I was in [for Abracadabra], there were three of us in wheelchairs … and we weren't center stage the whole time. We were just in the choreography, and I think that's such a beautiful thing.”
Hill (left) with other dancers from the Lady Gaga Abcadabra fan video.
Accessibility for Live Event Audiences
For Hill, accessibility in live entertainment extends far beyond the stage. “As an attendee, going to anything that's a ticketed event, I feel like it's really important to know not what the disability is, but if the [person with a] disability is also an ambulatory wheelchair user … I have been to events that are ticketed [where] sometimes the ADA section is either sold out, it's blocked off for equipment, or there's just stuff there. I would love to make sure that if someone is coming as a wheelchair user to an event that doesn't have the option to get out of their chair, that they still have the opportunity to be able to sit in an ADA seat.”
She adds, “I wish that there was a way that if I want to go see a game or a show, I [would always] have the opportunity to buy an ADA seat,” Hill says. “If not, then I can't go see the show. I can't go up a set of stairs.”
With that said, Hill recalls many positive experiences, such as when she and her husband went to a football game and were moved to accessible suite seating after explaining that no ADA tickets had been available for purchase. “That’s the nicest, when [ticketing professionals] go above and beyond, especially when someone has a physical disability and they literally have no other options,” she says.
Hill continues, “If someone does come and they bought a regular seat, just do the best that you can to accommodate them, given the circumstances,” she recommends. “I’ve had good experiences and bad experiences with box offices, where the people there are just like, ‘Oh, we don't have anything we can do for you,’ and they just don't try at all. But then I have also had really good experiences where they have really accommodated and went above and beyond given the circumstances … I think [my advice would be to] try your best to go above and beyond for somebody who has a disability.”
Many venues already send “Know Before You Go” emails to attendees. To ensure people with disabilities have the information they need, Hill says, “it would be great to be able to know if there is a ramp to get to our seats. A visual would be so helpful, like a photo or a video of where the seat is.” Specific information about parking can also be very helpful. “It's not just that I need to park close, but I also need a space to be able to open my door fully, get my wheelchair out, or have my friend have their van, and have the lift come out.”
Inside the venue, Hill appreciates a low window at the ticket office or customer service so she can “see the person, and I'm not looking up and having this desk at my neck area.”
She adds, “Some events have people that will walk you from the ticketing to your [seat], which is really great.” During intermissions, accessible food and restroom lines would also make a significant impact, Hill says. “For some people with disabilities, we can't hold it, so if we have to go to the bathroom and we have to go, we have to go. A lot of people use the accessible stalls because they are bigger, and a lot of people don't know that if you have a physical disability, you can wait in line just in front of that stall. But being able to have a sign on the door that says, “For disability only” would be great, because it's really annoying when someone's taking up the big stall, and I'm like, okay, there's 10 other open stalls, and you pick the one big stall. That's really hard for our community.”
Through her personal and professional life, Hill carries a message she first heard from her father: With every negative, there’s a positive. “Even with my disability and becoming paralyzed, with that negative, there has been so much positive that has come out from that,” she says. “When there's a challenge in life, there is always something to learn from it.”
Hill and her family.
That belief has shaped Hill’s approach as a dancer, entrepreneur and mother, and it continues to guide her through new ventures. Currently, she and her team are preparing for Rollettes Experience 2026. The event is a multi-day women’s empowerment weekend in Los Angeles that brings together 250 to 300 participants from 14+ countries for dance classes, panels, parties and the Boundless Talent Showcase. “It’s our talent showcase and competition for people with disabilities, giving them a platform to show their talent, whether it is monologues, acting, singing, dancing, solos, duos, trios or group numbers. It is all people on stage who all have any physical or intellectual disability,” she says.
The Rollettes Foundation has also launched its first-ever Give for Good campaign, raising funds throughout November to support these initiatives and empower more women, youth and children with disabilities globally.
As she looks ahead, Hill remains grateful for the allies who open doors alongside her, including “Wicked” choreographer Christopher Scott. “To have a choreographer in the industry who believes in somebody with a disability to come in and support him, that's hard to come by … I'm really appreciative of him for giving me the opportunity.”
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