Photo by Eliesa Johnson Photography
Kelsey Peterson for Evereve
Though she moved around growing up, Kelsey Peterson always returned to Madeline Island, the place her parents met and her family vacationed throughout her youth. In 2012, living and bartending on the island, Peterson dove into Lake Superior late on the Fourth of July and emerged paralyzed from the chest down. The dancer, choreographer, and yoga instructor had to relearn her body and her craft, a journey that she chronicles in the documentary Move Me, released in April, aired at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, and appearing on PBS’s Independent Lens on November 7. Now she’s working toward more recognition of the disability community and blazing an accessible trail for those who follow.
What were you feeling after your accident?
I cried a lot. I’m still sad sometimes. I miss things being easier. I miss being independent. I miss being spontaneous. I miss so many things. I miss going swimming, doing yoga, going for a run, taking a shower alone.
At the time, I felt like I lost a connection to my body. There’s no way around that. I definitely did. I lost these things that I thought defined me. And I had to shift my idea of what a dancer was, and then I could still be a dancer, but just in a different way. We easily forget that adaptation is one of our superpowers as human beings. And if we can surrender to the flow and lean into our creativity and our ability to adapt, we find there’s something much better on the other side.
You lived in Northeast Minneapolis for 10 years. What drew you back to Madeline Island a year ago?
This island has such a gravitational force that draws you back if you’re the type of person that falls in love with her. I feel supported and at peace here. It’s easier to feel that interconnectedness that a lot of us lose when we live these insular lives, especially in the city. I need community in order to function, and this community’s pretty amazing.
Have you faced a lot of trailblazing on the island?
Oh, God, yeah. I live off the grid right now in the woods. I don’t have running water. I don’t have electricity. My life is trailblazing. I feel like it should be a reality TV series. I’m working on getting more accessibility on beaches here. There are so many people with disabilities that would love more access to this beautiful place. It would make such a big difference.
Tell me about the five-year experience of creating your documentary.
I wasn’t going into this project thinking, I’m going to share my life with the world. The plan was to go around the country, capture what’s happening in terms of the cure climate for spinal cord injury and what it’s like to live with this disability. And then we filmed for a month and realized that story wasn’t there, and so once again, we had to surrender to the flow. And that, I learned, is such a big part of documentary film—ultimately, the story that wants to get told will reveal itself, and it might not be the one you thought.
Is there a change you hope to inspire by creating Move Me?
We’re oftentimes put in this one-dimensional box as people with disabilities, and I hope that by sharing my story, people can see that we are very dynamic and powerful and complicated and interesting human beings just like anybody else. I hope that really anyone can see themselves through my experience. We all go through things in our lives where we lose something or we have to change in a big way. And this film has the potential to bring healing and serve as a bridge between able-bodied and disabled worlds.
Tell me about your experience at Evereve.
It was a dream to get to browse and just play and enjoy my bod and these clothes.
On Peterson: Nation Ltd “Bardot” tee ($154), Agolde “Riley” jeans ($188), Dolce Vita booties ($175), Evereve “Abalone” rings ($38) from EVEREVE, evereve.com
This article originally appeared in the November 2022 issue of Mpls.St.Paul Magazine as part of our series, The Foreword, presented by Evereve.
