In August, 2003 Green Candle Dance Company, in association with Connect at Sadler's Wells, held its fifth annual Dance Summer School for Deaf Children. Over the years it has been my pleasant and non-onerous task, as company artistic director, to attend one or two sessions and hand out certificates at the end. This year, however, I undertook to write about the summer school. This meant observing all I could, and talking to many of the people involved.
The six-day course broke down into five days spent developing work, with results shown to family and friends at the end. Some 40 young people attended the course, many profoundly deaf, some hearing-impaired and a few with additional disabilities such as autism, Down's syndrome and mild learning disabilities. A few children had no hearing loss, as deaf children attending the course are encouraged to bring a hearing sibling or friend.
The success of the Summer School is heavily dependent on good teamwork. It is a first principle of the School that a 'deaf-friendly' environment is created, particularly one where children with all degrees of hearing loss can be completely at home. For some, a full-time sign language interpreter is an integral part of the course. For others - for example, those with additional learning disabilities - it means individual help is at hand when needed.
The school's director is Green Candle Education Director Rachel Elliot. This year she assembled a particularly fine team of tutors and volunteer support workers. Heading these was Jane Aston, Associate Artist in Education with Green Candle and Director of Junior Dance at The Place. Julie Hornby was the professional sign language interpreter (both Rachel and Jane are good signers as well). Jo Dunbar, profoundly deaf from birth and trained in community dance at Laban, was our apprentice teacher. Completing the team as volunteers were Matt Standfast, doing Theatre Arts, Education and Deaf Studies at Reading University, Emma Pascal Willis, a profoundly deaf dancer who has just completed a post-graduate course at the London Contemporary Dance School and Ackerley Cairns, a dancer currently working with Chicken Shed Theatre.
The presence of young professional deaf dancers provides children on the course with a model of deaf people succeeding in the professional world of dance. It also provides a valuable training opportunity for those dancers. Rachel Howlett, of Connect at Sadler's Wells, was the main administrator for the course, working with Connect Manager Sheryl Aitcheson. Approximately one leader or support person to four children may seem like a large group. In fact, two members of the support team - Matt and Ackerley - were seconded almost exclusively to be with two of the group who had quite severe learning disabilities. Their relationships with these young people was remarkable, and by the end of the week both were performing a long way above expectations.
"My daughter has come to all five Summer Schools. The first time we came was almost the first activity she ever did outside the home. I think I was very scared that she might not be 'good enough' if she went to outside activities with other children. But when we came here, her confidence was enormously boosted and so, in a way, was mine. I could see that not everyone was made in the same mould and that there's always room for people's differences. After the first summer she joined the Brownies and a swimming club, and now she's joined Chicken Shed. It was the Summer School which was the turning point" A parent of one of the Summer School students.
At Green Candle we have always laid great emphasis on the importance of music in projects with deaf children, particularly as prejudice often deprives deaf people of meaningful experience in this area. Will Embliss, a long-term musical collaborator of ours, has been Musical Director for the course since the beginning. This year he was joined by Alberto Ramon Pabon, a Colombian musician, and Kate Elliot, who is Sadler's Wells' Access Liaison Officer as well as being a musician. Among them they amassed an amazing array of instruments, from Will's self-made percussion plus trumpet, trombone and sousaphone (the one you wear around your body like a hungry boa constrictor), Alberto's classical and Andean flutes, pan pipes and drums, and Kate's saxophone and clarinet.
And it is here, with music, that the week begins. The children are divided into two groups - those aged between six and nine work in the mornings, while ten to 16 year-olds take the afternoon. After a short Monday morning warm-up, introducing the week's theme of Journeys, the younger group is introduced to the instruments, including such strange creatures as the Batonka (Will's assemblage of tuned drainpipes) and the previously mentioned sousaphone. Responses to the instruments are varied and enthusiastic, showing quite clearly that even profoundly deaf children are getting more than just visual interest from the instruments.
Throughout the course, music will add enormously to the dynamic and rhythmic qualities of the children's dance. It is initially a challenge for the three musicians to collaborate effectively, improvising for the children's newly-created movement. The final showing on Saturday will demonstrate what an extra dimension, in terms of timbre, texture and rhythmic interest, this combo brings to work.
I sit in on a special session with the older group. Tap Dogs is playing on Sadler's Wells main stage, and one of the dancers has been invited to lead a tap workshop with the group. In general the Summer School takes an eclectic approach to dance, drawing on a wide range of genres from contemporary to jazz, street, ballet and world dances. An emphasis is usually placed on the participants discovering and developing their own unique movement vocabularies. A whole session devoted, therefore, to working in one particular technique is an unusual experience both for the group and for the tutors. Although there were some initial groans and moans (mostly at the sheer difficulty of tap), by the end of the session the whole group was participating with enthusiasm and a fair degree of accomplishment. In fact, because of the Tap Dogs connection, the course leaders decided to place a special emphasis on rhythm throughout. Later that day I watch the group working with Jane Aston on a precise, if basic, tap-based sequence. I am very impressed by the degree of togetherness and rhythmic coherence the young people are showing.
'For me the two biggest challenges were, firstly, to know how much and when to sign. Much of the information in the dance session was already transmitted visually, and two of the tutors (Rachel and Jane) were proficient signers already. Also, too much visual input can be confusing. The second challenge was to understand the children. Young ones often don't sign as articulately as adults, or their signs can be very small or perhaps floppy, and that can be tricky to understand! And the older ones may use cool 'street'-type language that I'm not familiar with. One of the best things about the course was that I was completely integrated into the team. Sign language interpreters are often left out and not involved in the planning or evaluation of projects they take part in. That wasn't the case here.' Sign language interpreter Julie Hornby.
During the week I have observed that amongst themselves, to their parents and to their teachers of the course, the children use an amazingly wide range of communication skills. For some profoundly deaf children, for example, signing is their first language, but not always. Jo Dunbar, apprentice teacher, was born profoundly deaf but never learnt to sign, her main means of understanding is to lip-read and to use the small amount of residual hearing she has. Other children will learn various mixes of signing, lip-reading, spoken communication and residual hearing. Many have cochlear implants. Nearly all are facially very expressive and physically very tactile - when hearing is reduced, a tap on the arm is often the only way of attracting the attention of someone not facing in your direction. So, in short, deaf children are expert communicators. Such skills can be directly translated to the stage. This year, as in all the previous years, this was born out in the final showing.
Leaping ahead, it is Saturday and the grand finale. Although this is a sharing, aiming to show parents and friends the range of the work rather than a fully-fledged show, the event is nevertheless taking place in the Lilian Baylis Theatre with lights and rudimentary costumes - the children have brought in coloured T-shirts, which the team has decorated with stencilled designs. At the pre-showing rehearsal there is an air of enormous excitement, expressed by the children in an exuberant physical display of signing and joshing each other. The team has taken a decision that breaks with previous practice: rather than have two separate sharings for older and younger groups, they will amalgamate the groups and dovetail their contributions. This is a more complex exercise, as it involves the orderly handover of the stage from one group to another. It does mean, though, that the children see each others' work and that all the audience sees both age groups.
The Summer School sets out to be an encouraging and 'deaf-friendly' environment in which young people can learn new skills and make new friends. It is suitable for boys and girls with or without previous experience of dance, and accessible to deaf children with all degrees of hearing loss and using all communication methods. Parents report some important benefits for themselves, including the opportunity to meet with other parents of deaf children and the confidence they gain in their children's abilities.
The School is now part of a spectrum of activities that Green Candle undertakes with deaf children. The company and Connect at Sadler's Wells run a series of 'Deaf Dance Days' during the year, often in association with a visiting dance troupe and always with a professional sign language interpreter in attendance. The National Deaf Children's Society and Green Candle are currently planning a series of residencies with deaf schools and schools with deaf units in London. Whenever funds permit, the company takes the opportunity to present performances of its children's shows with signed interpretation. (Most of Green Candle's shows involve spoken word, sung or recorded text.) Future plans include enhancing the Summer School with the participation, as teacher and as performer, of a profoundly deaf professional dancer.
'Increased self-esteem. A feeling of confidence in being around peers. No sense of isolation. Empowered deaf role models and people with deaf awareness. Fantastic!' A parent's post-course evaluation.
To contact Fergus Early email info@greencandledance.com