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All the same at heart
Practice, practice: Rehearsals are a time to make new friendships
Practice, practice: Rehearsals are a time to make new friendships.
The eyes of Wayan Sukarmen light up as he follows the directions of his dance teacher.
The 15-year-old tenses his arms with the extreme gestures of Balinese dance, straining to achieve the precise finger movements practiced over centuries.
'I have been doing modern dance for about six years, and a year ago I began to learn Balinese dance,' says the teen.
'This is much more difficult because of the hand movements, the eye movements, the expressions ' all of this following the gamelan music.'
Wayan made his comments during the rehearsal for a performance at a Gianyar city temple, where he performed with around 20 other young people from the Sanggar Tari Sekar Dewata dance school in Desa Serongga.
What made the performance remarkable was the dancers themselves. Some, like Wayan, performed in wheelchairs. Others danced on the sturdy legs of youth in this first collaboration of 'abled' and disabled by the dance troupe.
According to the head of the school, Ketut Gede Bendesa, bringing these youths together through dance has given them all the opportunity to discover that 'there is no difference between this person or that person, disabled or abled. Kids are all the same at heart.'
Bendesa has been working with disabled students for many years. In the past, he worked with local deaf children or those suffering from cerebral palsy, feeling that their disabilities did not mean they should be denied their cultural heritage.
'We started teaching disabled students in 2007. I think this is vitally important because arts can be done by anyone,' Bendesa says as teenage girls ' both on foot and in wheelchairs ' rehearse the Puspanjeli dance.
He continues. 'From the arts ' particularly for the ordinary kids ' there is the benefit to their mental fitness, and for the disabled there is the added benefit of a very marked rise in self confidence.'
Wayan, one of the disabled dancers, echoed Bendesa's comments. Increased self confidence developed through dance ' and through working with regularly abled friends has enhanced his life enormously, Wayan says, speaking fluent English.
As a toddler, he was stricken by polio in 2000 at a time when the disease had almost been eradicated across the globe.
However, polio vaccine was not always available in the rural part of Bali where Wayan grew up. He was left severely disabled and reliant on a wheelchair.
'Dancing together with these kids has increased my self confidence. I see that my situation does not affect my ability to dance ' or affect friendships,' says Wayan, whose elder brother was also a victim of the disease.
'I realize we are all the same on the inside,' he says. 'I see there is really no difference between me and others. Now, where ever I go, like the shops, I no longer feel embarrassed. Instead I know we are all the same.'
Joining Wayan on stage is Dimas Ari Sadha and his cheeky sidekick Kadek Surya.
At just 11, Dimas performs the Baris warrior dance as if he were possessed and at war with the spirit world. His movements are superbly controlled. His facial expressions journeying from terror to surprise and anger and then calm like one journey through different planes of existence.
Off stage, Dimas is a well-spoken pre-teen who says learning to dance connects Bali's youth with their cultural roots, something that is as important for the disabled as it is anyone else.
'It's important that we learn our dances to maintain our traditions. It feels good to dance with kids in wheelchairs, because we can get together as friends and collaborate in dance,' says Dimas.
'We can also learn from the disabled dancers. We learn of their experiences and from knowing this we can be more caring and understanding.'
His mate Surya, with eyes as wide and round as saucers and a face-splitting grin chimes in. 'We can build good friendships. They learn about dance from us and we learn about life and dancing in a chair from them and we can see we can dance and perform together anywhere,' says the 10-year-old.
It is this removal of barriers between people of different life situations that Bendesa is cultivating with his students at Sanggar Tari Sekar Dewata.
He points out while organizations for disabled people may be a good thing, they can run the risk of 'exclusivity,' resulting in isolation from the wider community ' the exact opposite of what the organizations attempt to achieve.
'I have an opinion that disabled people having organisations is a good thing, but on the other hand it can become exclusive,' Bendesa says. 'But if groups are made up of the abled and disabled, like the dancers here, they can build something strong together.'
'Here there are no special people,' Bendesa says. 'We are all the same.'
For more information, visit youtube.com/user/sekardewata.
' Photos by J. B. Djwan
