I was introduced to the basics of Indian Sign Language as part of the Creativity Activity Service (CAS) strand of the International Baccalaureate (IB) program at Step by Step school. The teachers who came to teach us were from Noida Deaf Society. This gave me the idea and the opportunity to truly extend the concept of Dance Without Limits beyond to those who cannot hear the rhythm of music, the very foundation of dance. I partnered with my classmate, Aryan Gupta, also a student of the IB program at Step by Step school to organize and lead a dance workshop for deaf children attending summer school at Noida Deaf Society. We quickly understood that those deprived of the sense of hearing can certainly understand rhythm, but use their other senses to do so. They can follow tactile cues and visual prompts to understand rhythm, and experience the same joy in dance that everyone else does. This experience reinforced my belief that dance is indeed a universal language that knows no limits!

 

Our learning that the deaf can understand rhythm or music beats by following touch-based and visual cues became the basis of our teaching strategy. We deployed the following steps to teach various choreographies, as demonstrated in the videos below.
- Feel the music beats
- See the demonstrator clap to the music beats
- Follow the beat count and dance demonstration

 

We taught new choreographies every day for the first 9 days, exploring a wide range of dance styles, such as hip-hop, as well as Indian folk dances like Bhangra from Punjab and Garba from Gujarat. To celebrate Noida Deaf Society’s Foundation Day on Day 15 of the Summer Workshop, we chose to perform two of the nine choreographies for our final recital.