Moved to make a difference, Adele Ulrich

Lancaster resident Adele Taylor Ulrich is a dancer, choreographer, movement therapist and political activist. She is, in a word, busy."I've considered giving up eating and sleeping," she quipped in an interview, which was shoehorned into her jampacked schedule. She is a founding member of Lancaster's Grant Street Dance Company. She is also co director of the Fulton Theatre's Youtheatre, a program for teens who have faced challenging circumstances. Much of her time these days is spent volunteering for Organizing for America, President Barack Obama's grass roots political organization.As OFA's community organizer for Lancaster, Ulrich has been running phone banks, and canvassing for support on behalf of the president's push for health care reform. Since the U.S. House of Representatives passed its health care bill, the battle over reform has moved to the Senate."It's going to be quite a fight, so we're working very hard to educate people," Ulrich said.In Ulrich's view, health care is a human right, and health care reform is a moral issue. She struggled for a decade with chronic fatigue syndrome — and with the travails of dealing with an insurer quick to deny coverage because of that pre-existing condition. She has survived breast cancer and thyroid cancer. She said she has health insurance that is considered good. Nevertheless, she said she has "actually had to fight" to get her insurer to follow her cancer adequately.During the presidential primaries, Ulrich got a call from a friend, who was a local field organizer for the Obama campaign. Her friend asked Ulrich to open her home as a staging location for campaign staff and volunteers.Still in pain from her cancer treatments, Ulrich agreed. That very evening, a half dozen or so campaign staffers were at her dining room table, and Ulrich was all in. She said she has long used her art as a means of expressing her social justice views. Now, dance is helping to sustain her as she does political work. The weekly movement classes she teaches are "deeply restorative, which really helps me to handle all that I'm handling," she said.