Tripura Kashyap, founder-director of Apoorva Dance Theatre in Bangalore and one of the pioneers of Creative Movement Therapy in India writes about her weekly dance therapy sessions for a group of 8 to 12 year olds with learning disabilities, Down's Syndrome, Autism and Intellectual Disabilities.
On my return to Bangalore after my training in Dance Therapy in the US, Iwas approached by the Baldwin Opportunity School to hold weekly dance therapy sessions for their children in the age group of 8-12 with mental challenges. The group was lively, enthusiastic and full of curiosity about dancing to music. This was the first group that I worked with in India and of course felt quite apprehensive initially. After the first session, I fell in love with everyone in this group. They were warm and friendly and tried their best to go through what was offered in the session. Here is a glimpse of the kind of work I did with them and the responses I got from them. We also managed to put up a small show at the end of the academic year! Ruth, their class teacher, was really supportive of the entire venture and Ireally enjoyed going to this school every week and feel the welcoming atmostphere of the class.
GEARING UP FOR A PERFORMANCE
I was invited to teach dance at a school for children with special needs because the principal wanted them to be trained for a performance at their annual day function. It was decided that the children would undergo dance therapy for the first six months, and the last three months would be used to develop a performance consisting of movement material evolved from these sessions. There were a group of twelve boys and girls between the age group of ten to twelve years with different challenges - Down's Syndrome, Autism, Learning Disablity and Intellectual Disability. We worked together twice a week for forty-five minutes each time. The children had no prior training in dance and were moderately challenged. Looking back, I would say this was a dance therapist’s dream group. - The kind of change and growth that was visible after the first few weeks were simply remarkable.
IDENTIFYING ISSUES
After movement evaluation, I found the children also had difficulties ranging from learning disabilities to behavioural disorders. Many motor abilities like jumping, hopping or skipping which came naturally to most children, had to be taught to them as a skill. I formulated an exercise in which children had to individually do each of these movements while travelling across the floor. As their coordination improved, I would get them to do the same holding hands with a partner. Through this they not only improved their own body coordination but also worked on synchronizing their movements with another person. As they began to feel confident with each of these movements, they began to use these movements in combination while travelling across the floor. For example, a jump across the floor had to be combined with hops and a slide. As they went through various kinds of loco-motor movements, they began to move their whole body as a unit, with ease and confidence.
ICEBREAKER EXERCISES
Though the children had no problems interacting with me, they hardly ever interacted with each other throughout the initial sessions. This was probably because they were constantly told to keep quiet during class hours. However, I felt that the dance sessions could become animated only if they interacted with each other. I therefore introduced a series of partnership and group exercises which acted as icebreakers. Through these activities children had to maintain eye contact with each other, hold hands with each other, follow a leader, lead the rest of the group or make a group dance with while sharing a single prop such as a huge fabric. As time went by, gender differences melted down, and their inhibitions towards movement and physical contact with each other reduced.
MAKING MOVEMENTS EASY
Since most of them had tense and rigid bodies that inhibited them from moving freely, I gave them props like streamers and dupattas to improvise with. The idea was to move the streamers so that different shapes like circles, lines and waves could be made with them in space and on the floor. In the beginning, each person stood in the same place making these shapes, then they individually moved around the hall so the streamers too moved with them still making shapes. We also played partnership games in which one partner had to move the streamer while the other mirrored the movement of the streamer with his or her body. Gradually the light and free movement of the streamers affected their body movements that became smoother, softer and less rigid.
MEMORY GAMES
With the exception of two boys, the others could not remember what we had done in the previous session. In the current session too, they had a poor memory for the movements they had learnt or created themselves. For example, if they learnt four movement phrases using hand movements, they had difficulty remembering the phrases as well as its sequence in the right order. We played many movement related memory games in which they had to remember their own as well as others’ movements. I also introduced a folk dance using cymbals with simple steps and directional movements of the hands. After a few weeks of intense work on memory and movement, they found it easier to recollect and repeat what they had learnt.
The group had some impressive strengths. They loved music, were interested in dancing and therefore involved completely in all the sessions. They were expressive and creative during the improvisation segments of the session. When they had to improvise movements with props, they would come up with interesting patterns and ideas of handling the props. We used sticks, hula hoops, chairs and ropes, etc. for them to move with so they could add fresh vocabulary to their body language. For example, they were given a task in which they had to create a dance with chairs. They came up with simple movements like carrying the chairs, sitting on them, turning the chairs upside down, rotating with the chairs and sliding the chairs across the floor. As they worked out movements with chairs, they also made up and recited a poem that referred to each of these movements. Through this activity they were not only able to create movements and poetry, they were also able to remember the entire sequence.
With help from Ruth, their class teacher, we also incorporated and reinforced certain educational ideas in our sessions. For instance, one of the difficulties they had was copying shapes and forms from the blackboard in to their notebooks. We made up an activity in which the group was divided into pairs. One partner had to draw a shape on the board and another had to walk the shape on the floor. For example if it was a triangle that was drawn, the partner had to walk in a triangular pattern. In this manner, we explored other shapes like straight and zigzag lines, squares and rectangle. This particular activity worked like magic because experiencing these movements with their bodies in space helped them draw these forms better! As it became easier to draw and move these simple shapes we introduced more complex movement drawing activities.
MINDS OPENING UP
As they gained confidence, their bodies became more flexible and coordinated. They ventured on their own to try out movements and steps from the dance sessions. A natural buddy system also developed as they helped each other achieve mastery over more complex movement activities. Ruth also noticed they took better interest in their academics after an hour of dance. Since their pent-up energy was being physically chanelised into creative activities, they felt calmer and became more open to learning.
Also Read: How Dance Therapy Helped a Girl with Autism
THE FINAL PERFORMANCE
The theme of the annual day performance was the change of seasons, so we finally worked on creating a group dance based on ‘seasons’. The children were excited at the thought of being on stage with costumes and props. We choreographed a simple five-minute piece in which many ideas from our therapy sessions found their way. We also used various coloured sarees to represent seasons. The dance revolved around the movements of the fabrics that the children contributed. They voluntarily took time off to work on their memory and precision of movements. During the final rehearsals we could see their proud faces filled with pleasure at being able to perform the dance without visual cues or physical prompts from any of us.
Tripura Kashyap studied Dance therapy at the Hancock Center, Wisconsin, USA and also received classical dance training at Kalakshetra, Chennai as well as Jazz, Ballet, Modern dance, choreography and dance theatre lessons at the American Dance Festival, N. Carolina. Tripura has received fellowships from the Ashoka International Foundation and the Indian Ministry of Culture for her innovative work in dance therapy and contemporary dance.
