Recently my dance partner Jessy Randhawa and I were called on a special mission to Nepal. It was a 10-day assignment where we were asked to teach Latin American dance to girls and boys whose hearing was impaired. It was a daunting task and moreover we did not have any idea that being there and training people will change the way we feel and look at dance completely. To be honest, we were more than amazed by the results after the workshop.
For me, this recent assignment to Nepal has been the most memorable one. Even more than teaching the King of Kuwait and his royal family. Ms Sarah Giri, wife of the former prime minister of Nepal who is also a good friend of my star student and Bollywood beauty Manisha Koirala, runs an institution for these special children. She invited us to teach them this form of dance for their annual programme to be held in November this year. Of course, we did not know what to expect since we had never taught dance to the hearing impaired, but after the end of our 10-day stint, we found the whole experience to be simply incredible.
The children were in the age group of 15 to 25 years and strangely none of them had ever danced in their lives. And for the first time Jessy and I danced in silence, there was no music, not even for Ms Giri and us. The students only danced to counts… counts that they would see when we raised our hands. It was just amazing to watch them dance and turn performers so soon.
Another interesting aspect about the hearing impaired children that we learnt was they have no sense of balance. So it was slightly difficult for them to understand the steps that required a lot of twists and turns. But by the end of their training, they effortlessly mastered every move taught to them.
Just as in any other rehearsal, these students too performed for eight hours at a stretch, but the difference was that there was no talking or gossiping or breaks or idle chat. I realised that dancing in silence really helps you appreciate the dance form better. I think we waste a lot of time chatting endlessly about things that really don’t matter. But it was here that I realised that once the rehearsals began, they concentrated on their dance and nothing else in this world could distract them. It seemed really strange as this thought somehow never occured to me that way.
In Mumbai, when we rehearse we are so concerned about the music we dance to or our way of expressing a particular emotion to the music. But for these children, the music is in their heart and the emotions are expressed through the various experiences they have encountered in their life. As a choreographer I would often tell dancers to feel the music to express, but now I have stopped using this sentence as I realised that feeling the music is not very important. Feeling the movement is the actual beauty of expression.
To help understand these students better, we had taken a few lessons in sign language in Mumbai. But in Nepal we realised that there was a slight difference in the language we learnt and the language they communicated in.
However, we tried and somehow managed to convey to them what we needed. The children could not read lips, so there was no point in me talking either. After rehearsals, when Jessy and I would return to our hotel, we too would not communicate. The silence was so beautiful that both of us did not want to come out of it.
The most important aspect of this assignment was making a difference to their lives. They may not have all their senses but I think by the end of our stay they achieved much more than they or I could imagine. And in that sense, I think we achieved what we set out to achieve.
The programme is scheduled for April and sometime in late March, and Jessy and I will return to Nepal to check on their progress. Ms Giri wants to show the people of Nepal that despite their so-called drawbacks and disabilities, these students are still capable of doing so much more.