Barry Martin (1961-2006).

Dancer, teacher, and choreographer Barry Martin died at his home in Manhattan in February at the age of 44. Martin won a scholarship to The Alley School in his teens and went on to earn his degree in sociology and dance at SUNY Purchase. In 1983, the hip British dance company Hot Gossip asked him to join its world tour. While performing in South Africa, he was in a car accident. Refused transportation by the white-only ambulance service and entrance into the white-only hospitals, he did not receive proper care until too late. His broken neck and fractured vertebrae were left untreated, and he became quadriplegic.

But the fact Martin was confined to a wheelchair never stopped him from continuing his involvement in dance. After receiving a graduate degree in arts administration from New York University, he established Deja Vu Dance Theater in 1986--so named "because dance was something I saw once and now see again in a new way." Alvin Ailey commissioned Martin's Chelsea's Bells for his company. Martin ran workshops at the Public Theater in New York and had just established a children's dance workshop with students from The Ailey School, School of American Ballet, and Dance Theatre of Harlem. He was working toward a further degree at NYU in arts and disabilities when he died.