In the Como Primary School Hall shoes clank noisily against the old wooden floors. Music vibrates against the white walls, the slides and steps of dancers harmonise with the strict tempo. Outside the wind is howling, rain is pushing against the worn windows. While the air outside is chilly, in this room, the air is warm with passion.

Seeing the excitement and connection between the dancers in Ballroom Fit’s Ability class is both inspiring and uplifting.

Ballroom Fit is a DanceSport registered dance company offering dance classes for people of all abilities.

Since its establishment in 2017, Ballroom Fit has grown from a single wheelchair dancing class to a company supporting the passions of people facing all kinds of barriers.

With wheelchair, hard-of-hearing, visual impairment, para dance and ability dance classes, Ballroom Fit has provided communities with an outlet to express their energy and ecstasy.

Setting the stage

It’s a gloomy morning, with dark grey clouds painted across the sky. Rain spills from the gutters, dripping down to the concrete floors. Sitting under the veranda attached to the classroom, Principal of Ballroom Fit Darryl Davenport OAM speaks against the wind in a calm, reserved tone. With one hand a top the other, he shares how his love for dance began to blossom, his journey beginning at just seven years old.

“My next-door neighbour needed a dancing partner. She was one year older than me, but I ended up dancing with her,” he says.

From that point on, Davenport was in love with dance. As his grandparents had been competitive ballroom dancers, his family supported and encouraged the sport, leading Davenport to continue dancing through his adolescence, even after his dance partner gave up.

Davenport danced until he was 17, when he took a break from dance to study at university. When he was 28 he came back to dance, while he was travelling in the United Kingdom. 

After graduating with a degree in business, Davenport was working as a personnel officer in Manchester. Then came news his job was being taken over, so he applied for a job he saw advertised in the paper for a dancing teacher. Much to his surprise, he was hired.

From there his enthusiasm only grew stronger.

Ballroom Fit was not Davenport’s the first venture in inclusive dance. OUTdance was the first not-for-profit company he started. It offers dance classes and social events for LGBTQIA+ people.

Leading on from this, was his second not-for-profit created in 2014: the Western Australian Masters Formation Team. This is a specialised group of couples in DanceSport, who train and compete as a group.

This led to the establishment of Para and Ability Dance in 2018, a charity association for people with disabilities.

Creating all of these successive, progressive businesses didn’t satisfy Davenport’s philanthropic drive. He knew he could do more.

Breaking through boundaries

Starting with one wheelchair-dancing class, Ballroom Fit started to grow.

Davenport started Ballroom Fit after taking on a role for a wheelchair dancing class in Melbourne, due to the previous teacher taking on a full-time job.

“That’s where things really kicked off, because what I didn’t realise before that class, which was a really big class, was that they actually wanted to grow. But the teacher didn’t have the capacity to allow it to grow because she had other commitments, so she was keeping it as something that she could manage,” he says.

“Whereas for me at the time, I had the capacity to grow it. So, what we did was we actually split that one class up into subclasses, so people didn’t need to travel as far.”

By dismantling this class to smaller classes in different locations, Davenport created the concept he uses now and brought it over to Western Australia.

Ballroom Fit offers classes across multiple locations in metropolitan area, including Como, Cloverdale, Cannington, Bassendean, Victoria Park and Willagee.

For dance teacher Chris Wood, working in Ballroom Fit has been a moving experience. 

“It’s wonderful. To be able to bring dance to people who never thought they could make a dance,” he says.

“I had a wheelchair partner, who passed away last year. Every time we did a waltz, her mother used to cry. She never believed her daughter would be dancing.

“Just being able to bring that thrill of dancing and the passion of it, to people who would have never thought they could. Twenty years ago, this was never heard of.

“If it wasn’t for Darryl, this industry wouldn’t be here.”

Chris Wood

The dance industry is known for its competitiveness and can often be a toxic environment for students. However, Wood has made it his mission to reject this norm, pushing for community participation rather than perfection. 

“Everybody’s ability is different. I’ve had a knee replacement, so I’m limited to what I can do, so in my classes, just do what you can do”.

“I’ve got my high needs clients, and I might get a finger moving to the music. That’s dancing.

“Dance is accessible to everybody. No matter what your disability is, mentally or physical handicap, we can adapt to anything.”

Chris Wood

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, roughly 5.5 million people in Australia have a disability, and research from the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations reveals one in two of Australians aged 65 and over have a disability.

General manager of WA Disabled Sports Association Hannah Franklin believes accessibility in sports can be momentous. 

“Just being able to connect with that group every single week and train with your friends, get that community connection, it can be life changing for people,” she says.

From 2024–2025 an estimated 14 per cent of Australians with a disability participated in a sport-related activity at least once a week, with roughly 11,000 young adults participating in DanceSport.

The WA Disabled Sports Association has partnered with Ballroom Fit several times to promote diversity in the dance world. For Franklin, this is a relationship worth keeping.

“I think what they do is awesome and it’s just, you know, the more opportunities that are out there for people with disabilities and the more choice and the more opportunities they have, the better.”

Redefining rhythm

For his distinguished contributions to the dance industry, Davenport has received myriad awards including the Curtin University Alumni Community Service Award in 2019 and the City of South Perth Australia Day Community Citizen of the Year Award in 2021. Most notably however, in 2025 Davenport was awarded with the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his outstanding support to Dance Sports.

With all Davenport has accomplished, his pursuit of inclusivity in the dance industry has only just begun. 

With a warm smile on his face, he reveals his latest accomplishment, which for him, hits close to home. 

“Yesterday I had my initial interview with Solace Cancer Care, and we are going to be offering a monthly tea dance for cancer patients,” he says.

“As most families, our family has been touched by cancer, and so that’s really nice we are able to be part of that support group.

“Solace assisted our family through the process we went through, so it’s really quite meaningful for me to able to help them, and hopefully be able to help their patients and supporters being able to have a fun activity to do when they’re going through a difficult time.”

A date when Solace’s monthly tea dances will begin are not yet confirmed, but Davenport is hoping for classes to start this month.