Nache

How does a baby learn to dance? Through watching? Imitating? How then to the blind babies learn? Today Netu was holding onto the cool iron bars of the cots. Never wanting to sit, and yet for so many months she has been so close to taking her first independent steps. The physiotherapist who visits the orphanage once a week told me in a unique twist of infant development, blind babies learn to walk before they learned to crawl. He explained it was because they never saw an object they wanted so did not know to try and crawl towards it, while simultaneously being scared of what might be in there way. I wondered about the power of sound and the heightened sensitivity to different noises which the blind children possess about whether this could be a stimulus for the baby crawl. I also wonder to what extent the walk before crawl phenomenon was specific to the orphanage where the babies either spend their days sitting in their chair or hanging onto the iron bars as they stand next to the cots. By having to reevaluate the development of blind children in relation to children with the gift of sight the intelligence and fortitude of the blind children, as well as their innate connection with their selves is overwhelming.

'Nache nache nache' sang a massi as she walked past clapping her hands in the direction of baby Netu. 'Nache nache nache' I continued as little Netu began to wobble her body forwards and backwards, propelling her hips towards the cot and then swinging backwards. She was actually dancing to my rhythmic claps. Two dimples had popped into her baby cheeks, as she smiled outwardly, while loving the movements and managing to keep her balance. Baby Mita was by her side, also hanging onto the iron bars, although her taller height means that she flops her head and shoulders over the cot while her legs stand like motionless stilts. Mita also began to grin, and very gently began to swing her body while slowly moving towards me and my sounds. I now had two little blind babies moving towards me in a slow happy dance.

Netu is clearly very clever. Her persistence to learn, to explore toys, sounds and movement is in stark contrast to the majority of the children in the 'inactive' section. Her baby babble vocabulary is growing extensively and now each morning she greets me with a rather disconcerting 'ma ma'. Thankfully, this is indiscriminate and she is happy to 'ma ma' to any of the volunteers. This makes me wonder if 'ma ma' is just a natural progression from 'la la la' and to the extent that this is taken as a word full of meaning and recognition by hopeful mothers? Netu has also taken to the rather harder pronunciation of 'da da'; but as no men are allowed to volunteer in the orphanage, this one is devoid of sentimentality. Meanwhile, she adores 'ba ba blacksheep' and will she sporadically start to quietly 'ba ba' before 'twinkle twinkling' her way towards a 'little star'. If she is seated and unable to do her hip wiggle, alternatively she will accompany her songs by quickly kicking her legs as she moves her whole body in excitement. She has also become a fan of the ipod, and when she hears the word 'music' she will put her fingers to her ears, dimple her cheeks and kick her little legs.

Music also has an incredibly powerful effect on Raki – another little blind girl who smiles and laughs her day through autism. Raki staggers around the nursery before curling into a ball on the floor and continuing in her own private world. But often she will hear me singing and come and take hold of the strings of my apron. She will twist and twirl and turn herself around and around and around, until my apron is in a tight knot of cloth and she has to contort her body to continue to twirl under it. It is almost as if without music she disappears into her own parallel existence, which all of our attempts to play with her are on her terms and in accordance with her silent view-point. But again music is the exception, and for this she loves to share it with others, even if it is just to dance around them, or use their hands for orientation. Deepa is also a natural dancer, and again loves to share it with feet she can trust to dance upon, providing a new connection with the ground beneath her and the space around her as she will waltz foot ontop of foot, hand in hand, around the nursery.

I think back to the experiences I was exposed to in Bali. The world of sound and expression, where 'dance' took on an entirely new meaning of moving through stored emotions and experiences. Where movement stimulated such powerful releases of energy from deep within the black hole of the subconscious. I began to really feel the power of dance – to experience it first hand – rather than as a witness watching traditional dances such as in indigenous Australia or the ritual dances of Tibet. Freestyle dance has the potential to connect us to our deeper self – to the rhythms of life which travel inside of us. The liberation of dance is to allow ourselves to move spontaneously without social conditioning, but surrendering to the music as it carries us on our own journey of expression and emotion. In Bali I used to run a blindfold dance class, which had some crazy responses. People who said they had never danced in public before – or never danced sober – but with the blind fold they felt the music and allowed it to move their bodies. Screams of anger would be released through stomping, shouting, jumping, tears would silently fall, and pure joy would bring elasticity to otherwise stiff and rigid bodies. Without sight it is much easier to be present – to be fully with the sound rather than to allow the eyes to lead the mind somewhere else. In fact, the result of blindfold dance was so powerful that one man nearly danced out the window (to land in the flower bed) while others would blindly move together, building and sharing a tangible energy, while being totally inside their own momentum of life.

It is fascinating that the blind children use dance so freely as a form of expression and are confident to move their bodies so totally naturally, without copying others or being forced to move in a predefined way. Dancing seems to be such an innate reaction to rhythm and one which provides them with obvious happiness. Netu, Raki, Meta and Deepa are incredible dance teachers, and like so many aspects of our world, they have an innate understanding and ability to express, feel and step into the flow without being constrained by social conditionings. They are totally in touch with their emotions, and dance is one of the few ways they have to express themselves freely. There is much we still have to learn.