Tickets are required, but are available for free in the Hargreaves Music Building office.
Performances are April 22 at 7:30 p.m. and April 23 at 3 p.m.
Around 40 kids with intellectual or developmental disabilities have spent the semester working one-on-one with a group of students to present the Prism Project, a music, theater and dance showcase.
Amy Hourigan, a music education professor, started the Prism Project eight years ago with her husband, Ryan Hourigan, director of the School of Music.
The couple has two children on the autism spectrum and said there weren’t any other activities to participate in. They got notes encouraging them to join various clubs, but Amy said these clubs didn't really work for kids with special needs.
“While people want to help, once the kids get there, they don’t know how to help them, so it never works out. We wanted to have some kind of activity to do with our family, and that’s kind of one of the driving forces behind it for us,” she said. “Getting a chance to be part of the performing arts and getting to just do something different than they do all day at school — the parents are thrilled, the kids are thrilled.”
Hourigan said the parents tell her their experience of sitting in the audience and seeing their children perform and hearing 600 people cheer for their child, even though they might not be doing the same thing everyone else is, is transforming for them.
“The parents of the kids with special needs — and I’m a parent of kids with special needs — you’re advocating for your child all the time because your child can’t advocate for themselves. You’re used to hearing ‘they’re doing great, but they’re behind everybody else,’” Hourigan said. “The audience being there, it’s like a crazy experience, because there’s so much joy in the audience.”
Maddie Penney, a senior special education and elementary education major, has been involved in the Prism Project each year she has been at Ball State.
She said every week of the project is a new story, and when the performance takes place, weeks of blood, sweat and tears come out with joy, happiness, dancing and singing, and people’s preconceived notions about kids with disabilities are completely shattered.
“I think it’s quite funny because there are ideas about how kids should act, just in general, and these kids push every boundary and they push every button and sometimes, you know, it can be really challenging,” Penney said. “But I think that’s where most of the growth happens, at least personally for me, are in those challenging moments because sometimes working in the Prism Project, we have to differentiate how we communicate to the kids."
Penney said the Prism Project has empowered her. Before the project, she thought of herself as only a general education teacher.
The project has lit a fire and a passion in her heart for the kids and has taught her how to communicate with them, both verbally and non-verbally. She said once people start focusing on what the children can do, what they can’t do becomes less important.
“I think the most rewarding part is knowing that every single week we are celebrating different abilities," she said. "That’s something that doesn’t happen very much, especially in our society today. We’re told that kids with disabilities are less than or they’re not enough or they’re not normal.
“You realize that just because their abilities are different doesn’t mean they’re anything less.”
Marcella Seibert, a sophomore elementary education major, said her role is to help and encourage the performers.
“You really get to know these kids, you get to know your performer and you really develop a really awesome relationship with them,” Seibert said.
Seibert was involved with choir and theater throughout her life, but stopped due to how immersive her major is. She got involved with the Prism Project because it combines children with the arts, which are two of her favorite things. Even though she and other students are involved, the focus is on the kids.
“You want to try and let them perform as much as they can because this is their performance, like this is their thing, their parents came to see them be the star,” she said. “So usually you try to be a little hands-off, but there are some things where you get to perform with them.”
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