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They each have a sherpa with a loving embrace. They’ve been dancing with their guides for a while and we see how they are comforted by their mentor to do what they have never imagined they would have to do before. They sway. They dance. They take it all in, though sometimes it is an overpowering smell of hay on a carnival’s sidelines. Or they are taking in other smells, like popcorn at a State Fair. Sometimes they feel the ocean, or the sprays of water putting them in mist. They have to keep cool in a chaotic train station and somehow find their seat. They are walking off the face of the earth. They are making their way through the tide — or rather, the plastic rustling to sound as such, in the time-proven fashion of oldie time radio.
They, the handful of volunteers pressed into service to join the ShaLeigh Dance Works troupe, are blindfolded. Trust is not a back-of-mind matter. We see— even those of us who chose to also be blindfolded —that trust issues don’t get more front of mind than this.
American Dance Festival Embraces a Dance of Empathy
ShaLeigh’s mission is to help us feel the reality of those who are deaf or blind and sidelined to the margins as a result. Some audience members choose to be blindfolded. Some choose earplugs to simulate hearing impairment. Some of us choose —if we can— to stay with all five senses powered on— to take it all in.
In this writer’s view, the plaintive voice of the narrator, coupled with the on and off violin solo, is so powerful that it renders the dance to be almost a footnote mention. For those of us with full hearing, we might have thought that we recognize this narrator from Ken Burns’ Civil War Series as he read the soldiers’ letters home. The boat that bookends the dance might have been previously owned by Orpheus, and wired to play his mournful song on continuous loop.
Friends of Jerry’s Orphans, or ASL-activists who fiercely object to attempts to push them into the hearing world should probably steer clear of this performance.
Photos: Ben McKeown ©American Dance Festival
About the Author: Amy Munice
Amy Munice is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher of Picture This Post. She covers books, dance, film, theater, music, museums and travel. Prior to founding Picture This Post, Amy was a freelance writer and global PR specialist for decades—writing and ghostwriting thousands of articles and promotional communications on a wide range of technical and not-so-technical topics.
