Barry Martin

Barry Martin was a modern dancer who turned to a career in choreography after an accident left him a quadriplegic. 

Born in New York City, Martin trained at The Ailey School and received a degree in dance and sociology from SUNY Purchase. In 1983, while on tour in South Africa with the English dance company Hot Gossip, he was seriously injured in a car crash. Martin was refused transportation in a whites-only ambulance for being Black and, after taking a car to the hospital, was denied treatment. His spinal cord was apparently severed during the transfer to another hospital. 

Martin eventually returned to New York and began to choreograph from a wheelchair in 1985. He earned a master's degree in arts administration from New York University, formed Déjà Vu Dance Theater (so named “because dance was something I saw once and now see again in a new way”), and continued to choreograph for his own and other companies. 

Martin taught dance privately, tutored children in the New York City public school system, and established a children's dance workshop whose members were drawn from The Ailey School, Dance Theatre of Harlem School, and the School of American Ballet. At the time of his death, he was studying for a second master's degree at New York University, focusing on disabilities and the arts.