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everal children with disabilities from the Gianyar Blind People'€™s Association (PTG) took to the stage at the Bali Arts Festival in Denpasar recently to perform a ballet titled Arjuna Sastra Bahu.

They were young but full of spirit. Despite their disabilities, they did very well and were very well received, dancing and communicating on stage with simple body language.

Balinese residents are starting to see more cultural performances presented by the disabled. One of the very few people who deserves the credit for making this happen is Ni Wayan Nyeri.

Nyeri is a dance mentor who graduated from the Indonesian Arts Institute (ISI) Denpasar, and is currently involved in many kinds of training in the arts for people with physical disabilities, including impaired hearing and speech.

During the show at the festival, every child on the stage focused on their performance but never lost sight of Nyeri, who was sitting at the side of the stage. Nyeri enthusiastically led the two-hour-long performance sending coded messages with her fingers.

The dance, as well as the gamelan, was all led by Nyeri.

As the show approached its end, Nyeri moved her fingers more enthusiastically while remaining focused on the scripts.

'€œThe finger codes have been discussed with the players,'€ Nyeri said. Every move of her fingers had a different meaning. For example, she used five fingers to make the performers play the ngagem section.

Prior to the performance, all the players were expected to memorize the meaning of Nyeri'€™s finger movements. Thereafter, they rehearsed every part accompanied by gamelan music.

'€œThe children sometimes laughed at me when I gave the wrong code,'€ said Nyeri, who works for the Gianyar Culture Agency, with a broad smile.

According to Nyeri, students with hearing disabilities have quite a strong memory, thus it was relatively easy for them to memorize her codes. '€œIt'€™s their way of communicating,'€ she said.

Nyeri'€™s presence has brought new hope to the disabled in Bali, allowing them to show their creativity. Through her simple instructions, the deaf could dance without hearing the sound of the gamelan, while the mute could make a dialog without producing even a single sound.

Nyeri'€™s students seemed to have mastered the performances as they have focused on them for a long time, unlike the team from the Kesayan Ikang Papa Foundation, which has to learn new scripts every time they perform.

Anak Agung Putri, the foundation'€™s tutor, who has mastered sign language, said her students were normally trained for two months before a performance. Nyeri, on the other hand, trains her students only on Fridays.

'€œThe children have often been invited to perform at large forums or hotels,'€ she said, explaining that they had mastered dance performances such as pendet, cendrawasih and sekar tunjung.

One of the foundation'€™s students, Sri Wahyuni, was even able to train her friends herself. She is a Balinese legong dancer, despite her impaired hearing.

Sri hoped that other disabled people could help her and start training others so they could offer more arts performances by disabled communities.

Mangku Arsana, a blind kendang (traditional drum) player with the foundation, echoed Sri.

'€œWe don'€™t offer something extraordinary, but we give something uncommon,'€ said Arsana, adding that his friends'€™ spirit to learn was very high.

He hoped that province would support the community by allocating funds for them and providing them with regular trainers. '€œWe can spend up to Rp 1 million [US$83.70] on training per day,'€ he said.