People Dancing

The curtains billowed, allowing once again the sunlight to pour through the window onto the tiled floor. Overhead fans worked overtime as the sweat ran down our foreheads and we prepared for the next onslaught of young people. It all seemed a far cry from the air-conditioned, sprung floor studios back in the UK. Here Katie MacCabe reflects on her evocative trip to China

I first visited China in 1996 when I met a remarkable woman who was in the process of complex negotiations with the Chinese government to set up Living Stones Village - an orphanage for disabled children. We discussed the possibility of collaborating, and I made a promise that once I had completed my training and gained sufficient experience in running integrated dance workshops I would return.

So here we were some six years later - Rachel, Hannah our translator and I - sitting together on the tiled floor of one of the classrooms in the orphanage. The doors flew open, and 20 young people burst in ... some on piggyback, others pulled by their friends on skateboards. Wheelchairs and crutches were pushed to the side, and we were ready to start. Language no longer mattered. Dance became our form of communication. And it was to prove a potent tool.

We hoped to create a safe environment within the workshops where they would feel free to challenge themselves and their perceived notion of what they could and could not do, to breakdown the barriers and discover new ways of moving and being. So many of the children felt 'dis-abled' by society's perception and expectation. We wanted them to discover the uniqueness and potential of each of their abilities. And we hoped that their new found sense of achievement and empowerment would extend beyond the workshop setting, and apply to other areas of their lives.

The mornings were spent working with a group of children aged between five and ten. The aim, to allow time and space for them to explore their own ideas. Learning within Chinese schools is through repetition with little scope for creativity. At the end of the sessions, we invited the teachers to join in where they experienced being taught by the children. We hoped that this would encourage them to see first hand the children's abilities and to allow more room for creativity within their teaching. Crucially it symbolized a moment in the children's lives when they were empowered, able to take control and make decisions. For many of them, life's circumstances had denied them any control over their lives.

The afternoons were spent working with a group of young people dialoguing about the deeply ingrained attitudes towards disability within the Chinese culture and how these might be tackled through dance and the creation of a performance work. However, this was to prove more of a challenge than we had at first imagined. Whilst we knew they were athletic with lots of energy, the first few days were met with scepticism. Who were we? What were we trying to do? Why should they trust us? Valid questions, especially as we began to more fully understand what they had lived through before arriving at the orphanage.

All the children and young people at Living Stones had been abandoned. There is a feeling of shame attached to having a disabled child in China. People perceive it as a punishment from their ancestors for sins committed in the past. There is also no developed health system offering free health or social services, so if a child suffers a severe accident, often the parent has no choice but to abandon them. With the one child policy, most parents seek a 'normal' child, one who will be able to work and provide an income for the family. A disabled child is seen therefore as a burden.

Not only does a child have to learn to live with their disability, but also with the knowledge that they have been abandoned because of it. One young person sticks strongly in my mind. He had only been at this orphanage for two weeks. Prior to that he had been at one of the government run welfare centres. As a child, he had had polio, and so consequently had lost the use of his legs. For 15 years, he had dragged himself around, as no wheelchair was available. At the beginning of our residency, he was incredibly shy. He never gave eye contact, was always on the edge of the group and would spend a lot of the time hiding behind curtains or sitting staring at the wall. But gradually his confidence grew and by the residency end he was volunteering for a main part in the piece, he gave strong eye contact, and his face lit up with smiles. If we achieved nothing else, this memory will remain etched in our minds and reinforced our belief in the potency of dance.

Our residency aims functioned on many levels. At a personal level, for each individual to challenge him or herself and discover new things - to realise what they 'can' do, when for so long their abandonment has led them to believe that they could achieve little. For some this was accomplished through participating in the performance. For others, it was experiencing and making the commitment to work together as a group towards a shared aim. Through the performance we created, our hope was to shift attitudes and challenge prejudices towards disability. And we watched in almost disbelief as attitudes melted.

I confess that the art college environment provided an added edge - would the students and the director see the work as art with an aesthetic? I had been asked to talk about the work prior to the performance. Lines of students immaculately turned out in leotards, performing classical exercises to perfection, left me feeling rather apprehensive. But whilst none of the children at the orphanage were trained in this way, to my eyes there was more beauty in their movement. Their dance came from a different technique - not from movements learnt and imprinted on the body through years of training - but rather from drawing on their natural movement responses and from what was integral to their being and experience. The purity and rawness of each individual's movement was unique, and engaged the audience. It was appropriate to their own bodies, it was truthful and honest. They felt comfortable with it, and had ownership of it, allowing them to perform with confidence, and integrity.

It was the first time the students had encountered a performance of this nature - finding themselves face to face with young people with disability who are usually kept behind closed doors. The response was positive with impromptu applause. The beaming smiles said it all.

On reflection, our time in China proved to be a valuable exchange of learning. So often in the UK, we are striving towards better integration and inclusion. It seems ironic that it was in China where disability is less visible that we learnt the true meaning of integration. The young people at Living Stones Village lived and breathed it. Within this orphanage, it is not an issue, it is a way of life - a place where all are valued as individuals.

Katie MacCabe, dance director, Epic Arts. Email: katie@epicarts.org.uk

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Animated: Autumn 2002