[Callers] Calling for the visually impaired

Sun Apr 14 19:25:19 PDT 2019

You didn't mention in what context you work wth kids who are visually
impaired -- are you a classroom teacher, orientation & mobility specialist,
some other type of therapist?   I'm a (relatively recent) O&M specialist
and have twice done workshops at a dance weekend that I co-taught with a
visually impaired dancer, where we looked at the techniques that he used
for staying oriented.  Lots of them would be great to work on with kids
from an Orientation & Mobility perspective too.  In a nutshell, the skills
included

   - sound localization (keeping track of where the sound of the band /
   music is coming from
   - developing a sense of how far you get in how many steps (this was
   particularly in contra lines) -- eg: 8 counts/steps is about 1x around; 6
   is about 3/4;
   - In a disconnected move like a hey or dosido, he would use a slightly
   stylised upper and lower protective technique, with one hand palm out
   around head level and one hand palm towards him around waist level, using
   that as both bumpers and feelers to detect when he was passing someone, and
   to keep from walking into something

If it would be useful, I'd be glad to talk about some of the other things,
and also O&M techniques that I could see being applied to traditional dance
-- when I was doing these workshops I had just started my O&M program, and
there are a number of things I would probably do differently.

One possible idea is teaching some of those disconnected moves by using the
narrow passages human guide technique -- with the guide's arm behind their
back (more or less the same position used for the ladies role in a courtesy
turn) and the VI person holding onto the guide's wrist (and therefore right
behind the guide).

In any event, I have a lot of thoughts on this, as you might be able to
tell.  Glad to elaborate further either on or off list.

Jack

On Sun, Apr 14, 2019 at 9:38 PM Helle Hill via Callers <
callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> Thank you so far for all your responses. I have learned a lot already. I
> just reread my original email and realize that I forgot to mention that
> most of the visually impaired are elementary, middle, and high school
> students so traditional dance may work well.
>
> Someone mentioned a Snake dance and I actually thought of starting with
> that.
>
> Thank you again. I look forward to reading more responses and suggestions.
>
> Helle
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Luke Donforth <luke.donev at gmail.com>
> *To:* Shared Weight Callers' Listserv <callers at lists.sharedweight.net>
> *Cc:* Helle Hill <hellehill at yahoo.com>; Mac Mckeever <macmck at ymail.com>
> *Sent:* Sunday, April 14, 2019 6:42 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [Callers] Calling for the visually impaired
>
> (Technical note, I Mac's response, but not Helle's original post?)
>
> I don't have extensive experience calling for visually impaired dancers. I
> have occasionally had an experienced blind dancer on the floor, but never a
> sizable percentage. But this is conjecture on my part; please trust your
> own judgement.
>
> It sounds like you're calling for a bunch of folks who don't regularly
> dance? In which case, I'd recommend (as with most one-off gigs), not
> focusing on 'duple improper contras' and just get folks moving to music.
> Something as simple as a snake dance may be a good kick-off. It's not
> overly simplifying for them, that's often a dance that gets used at
> community dances.
>
> It may be worth talking to the sound person ahead of time to see if a
> clear "head of the hall" can be established sonicly. Some gigs will put up
> more than one row of speakers or such to blanket the sound, but giving an
> audio clue about direction may be useful.
>
> If you're shooting for hands-four contras, I wonder if some of the pass
> through progressions of simple contra dances could be re-worked to have a
> roll-away instead? For instance,
> A1:
> long lines
> neighbor swing, end facing down the hall
> A2
> Down four in line, turn as couples, come back
> B1
> Circle left three places, partner swing
> B2
> Circle left three places,
> balance the ring, gents roll neighbor lady away with a half sashay
>
> As two-swing contras go, that's a relatively simple. Everyone is always
> holding on to at least one other person. But you've still got changes of
> direction and knowing your orientation when you end the swing.
>
> But even that is more complicated than I would run for most community
> dances when most people aren't regular dancers. Even if you have one
> "seeing" partner in each pair, if you're not separating sets out by "this
> set has seeing gents role; that set has seeing ladies role" then if you do
> a neighbor swing, you'll end up with couples that don't have a "seeing"
> person.
>
> Good luck! And please do let us know how it goes, and what you figure out.
>
> On Sun, Apr 14, 2019 at 4:21 PM Mac Mckeever via Callers <
> callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
> For several years we had a wonderful lady dance with us who was totally
> blind (could not even tell light or dark)- here are a few things I learned
> from her
>
> She always danced in a line next to a wall - the reflections off the wall
> gave her as good a sense of direction as the rest of us.
>
> Use dances where you stay connected to other dancers.  With her experience
> she did well on dosido and hey - but down the outside alone was not
> possible.
>
> You will have a problem any time dancers need to make new connections -
> like ladies chain, allemand, etc - someone has to be able to find the
> impaired dancer's hand.
>
> She would not dance squares - too much uncertainty and dancers who are
> lost made it impossible for her to recover(in a contra you get past it
> quickly so only one time thru is challenging).
>
> As I said - this dancer was totally blind (but so good that those who did
> not know her often did not figure it out).  She also clapped at times when
> not connected to hear what was around her.
>
> It sounds like your dancers will have various degrees of impairment, so
> some of this may not be as important.
>
> Hope this helps some - while challenging - this should be very rewarding
> and fun.
>
> Mac McKeever
> St Louis
>
> On Sunday, April 14, 2019, 2:53:33 PM CDT, Helle Hill via Callers <
> callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
>
> I work with the visually impaired and have been asked to call an evening
> of dances for an outing. I know the basics of working with the visually
> impaired but does anyone have any suggestions for dances, how to handle the
> directional aspect, or any other ideas to make it a successful experience.
> I hope that each visually impaired dancer will have a "seeing" partner.
>
> Thank you so much in advance.
>
> Helle
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>
> --
> Luke Donforth
> Luke.Donforth at gmail.com <Luke.Donev at gmail.com>
>
>
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