Ammanda Zelinski has always gravitated toward singing, dancing and performing.
“She’s never had much for other interests,” said Ammanda’s mother, Kim Zelinski.
“From the time she was very small, it wasn’t even safe to stand between her and an empty stage.”
Ammanda’s first taste of creative success came when she was about seven and submitted a poem that was chosen to be published in a book.
“I won 50 bucks from there. For a second grader, that’s big money,” Ammanda said.
Ammanda Zelinski poses during a shoot for photographer Daniel Paquet in 2018. (Daniel Paquet)
Since then, the 27-year-old Regina woman has experienced many special moments as an artist.
Ammanda was diagnosed with autism just before her third birthday.
She says her parents were thrown for a loop, but they were told she could still lead a long and independent life, with the proper supports in place.
Ammanda Zelinski sits on her mother Kim’s lap in a 1996 family portrait. (Submitted by Ammanda Zelinski)
One place that provides support is the Autism Resource Centre in Regina. Diandra Nicolson, an employment co-ordinator there, works with young adults after high school to figure out what kinds of jobs they might be interested in and help them reach their goals.
“They are the most dependable employees. Since they prefer their routines so, like, strict and scheduled, [they’re] always going to show up on time,” Nicolson said. “They bring a unique perspective to things.”
Making friends wasn’t always easy for Ammanda. She says she often felt a step behind socially, but that changed as she grew more involved in the artistic community.
“Theatre definitely did help me with my communication skills,” Ammanda said. “Pretty much all of performance in general — acting, singing, dancing — it all goes into one.”
Ammanda Zelinski poses in a dance photo from when she was in Grade 4. She says she’s always loved performing in every capacity. (Submitted by Ammanda Zelinski)
Ammanda’s performing earned her scholarships. In addition to earning her bachelor of arts at the University of Regina, and performing in commercials and film, Zelinski has worked with Listen to Dis’, Saskatchewan’s only arts organization led by and for people with disabilities.
Traci Foster is the founder and artistic director of Listen to Dis’. The group’s mandate is to shift the way people perceive disability and create understanding of, and appreciation for, “crip art, mad art, and disability culture.”
She says it’s important for people in the arts to have lived experiences and varying perspectives, whether they are neurodiverse or not.
Performers work together at Listen to Dis’, Saskatchewan’s first and only disability-led, disability arts organization. (CBC)
Foster also says it’s important that everyone gets paid for their work.
“[People with disabilities] were still maybe aligned a little bit with, like, ‘somebody’s doing me a favour if they let me come and work with them’, as opposed to building the confidence to understand the talent and the skill that they had,” Foster said.
Ammanda wants to keep creating inclusive art using her perspective and life experience.
“With more acceptance of autism — not awareness, acceptance — we can continue pushing the narrative forward.”
Ammanda Zelinski sings during a performance for Kinsmen TeleMiracle in 2014 when she was 18. (Submitted by Ammanda Zelinski)
Mark Claxton, an actor and executive director of the Saskatchewan Association of Theatre Professionals, says parents should be delighted if their children are interested in the arts.
“It means their kids are legitimately curious about the world, really intelligent, you know, and want their lives to be meaningful,” Claxton said. “Who doesn’t want that for their kid?”
Ammanda’s mother Kim agrees, and is proud of everything her daughter has accomplished through passion, hard work and determination.
“I definitely need her as much as she needs me. I always will,” Kim said.
Ammanda Zelinski strikes a pose in a photoshoot outside Regina, in October of 2022. (Daniel Paquet)
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LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
