Lipreading music

A dance group for deaf children may sound a little strange. For the last three months 15 young hearing-impaired children from Kyiv have been attending special Latin American dance classes, part of the social project “Theater of Movements.”

Doctors say that such activities improve the vestibular system, develop a sense of rhythm, and help deaf children learn to speak earlier. In September, when the project began, around 20 children were attending the classes. Now their number has shrunk to 12.

Two hours of physical exercise is a lot even for a healthy first-grader. But five-year-old Andriiko and eight-year-old Liosha have no problems exercising for such a long time. “I’m tired, I’m tired,” says the youngest slyboots now and then, but as soon as the teacher lets him go, he grabs the toy machinegun he brings from home and starts prancing around the gym.

Andriiko will be six in February. He is not lazy; he’s simply not trying very hard. When his mother sits in a corner of the gym, the boy is restless and constantly distracted. “I don’t even know if he is making any progress,” she complains. “I watch him, and he is dancing. Then I look away and instantly he is up to some mischief — and the other way around.”

The boy is a quick learner; even his teacher agrees. He is very smart, maybe too smart for his own good. The other pupils have a hard time keeping up with him; that’s why he is so easily distracted. Andriiko understands that his behavior is unsatisfactory. He runs up to his mother, hugs her, burying his face in her shoulder. “If you don’t want to dance, let’s just leave,” she says. Andriiko shakes his head and runs back to join the children and jump around, doing his version of the rumba.

Communicating with semi-deaf children is not very difficult. Almost all of them can lipread, but only in Ukrainian. They have some hearing. “If you turn up the music, everything’s OK,” says teacher Tetiana Burbeha. “We have developed a special sign language for individual steps. We have almost perfect understanding.”

Special group dances are selected to make the classes more interesting for schoolchildren and pre-schoolers. Everyone has a special part to dance. “The rumba and rueda are not very complicated dances. They are exactly what we need to gradually develop coordination,” says dancing instructor Oleksii. “With our dancing it is important for the children to keep track of each other’s movements so that they can perform in sync. They’re doing almost everything correctly.”

The first 40 minutes are spent rehearsing and practicing separate elements of a dance. The instructors take turns dancing with the children because the rueda is performed in pairs. “You said she couldn’t do it. Just look at the way Nastia’s moving,” says the teacher encouragingly. Another five minutes and the main elements have been practiced and repeated. Not everyone is tired, but the younger pupils need to rest because too much physical strain is bad for them.

The children are given juice and allowed to rest for about 10 minutes. The gym is filled with running and shouting children. Kids will be kids. What do they know about being really tired? They drink their juice, put down the glasses, and start dancing again, this time to the accompaniment of music. Another half hour is spent practicing various rhythmic steps. It seems as though the lesson has just begun when parents start peeking into the gym. It’s time to go home or visit the doctor.

Two small dancers are absent; they are undergoing complicated surgeries. Several others couldn’t make it for other important reasons. The Theater of Movements is a free program, which makes it even more attractive to parents. The state provides such children with one hearing aid for three years, and it’s not the best quality. A good device costs over 5,000 hryvnias, so this special hearing aid is at the bottom of the list of expenses in families with a physically handicapped child.

Money is spent on clothing and items for school and after school. “We can attend these classes only on Saturdays because we have an appointment with a speech therapist on Mondays, a sign language class on Tuesdays, swimming on Wednesdays, every day is like this,” says one of the mothers.

The mothers are prepared to pay for these dancing lessons. “Of course, it would be good if we could continue our classes,” says Burbeha, “but the project is coming to an end. We are running out of funds, so we will probably have to charge parents 100 hryvnias a month to pay for the rent and the teachers’ salaries.”

It is possible to find rent-free premises, but the prospects are not too encouraging. Meanwhile, parents are more interested in how their children are changing. Some have become more sociable, while others have started speaking better. Some children have grown to love dancing and see it in their future. Maybe Kyiv’s billion-hryvnia budget will spare a few kopiikas to help deaf children start hearing music.