Dancing into the light

Liu Mao-ying (劉懋瑩) feels his way to the third-floor studio, folds a red-tipped cane and places it on a shelf. Slipping off his shoes and making his way onto the padded floor, he pushes a button on his watch -- "five forty-nine," an electronic Chinese voice announces -- time for dance rehearsal. For the blind performers of the upcoming 6th Sense in Performance Art festival (第六種官能表演藝術祭) only a few weeks remain before showtime.

The dancers are all associated with the Taiwan New Bodo Arts Association for the Visually Impaired (台灣新寶島視障藝文協會). The five-section piece they're working on, titled Naked Eyes (裸體的眼眸), is an exploration of each of the senses and quite unlike any traditional dance piece. Although their efforts will culminate in a public performance, the rehearsals have not focused on producing a polished showcase, but rather been a process of personal discovery -- both for the dancers and their choreographer, Emilie Hernandez, a French dancer who has spent the past four months both staging the production and encouraging a freedom of movement in the dancers that they might not otherwise explore. "The blind have an intuition like an animal or a child," she says. "They cannot be affected by people's face judgements or exterior appearance."

Personal space

Lee Hsin-bao (李新寶) is off in his own corner during warm-ups. He trained in dance briefly before going blind and demands -- and commands -- his own space. Most of the group of seven are content to keep their movement within arm's length, but Hsin-bao is leaping. His movement is fluid, crisp and certain. As he dances, sweat colors his green shirt grey and a smile stretches the width of his face.

A few in the group are uncomfortable and timid. Their dancing is reserved and their participation in the choreography is willingly limited. None of the dancers have been blind for life and several can see bright light and even shape, but ironically those that are totally blind are freer in their movement. What they all share is an intense concentration of where they are in space. The music provides not only the basis for the dance but lets the dancers know where their audience is.

When warm-ups finish it's time to begin rehearsing one section of the piece: touch. Elastic cords are stretched across stage and what looks at first like a series of guide ropes become part of the dance when the cords are stretched, twisted and intertwined before snapping out of sight, allowing for a segue into the next section.

Hernandez is strict. In every section of the piece, she encourages the dancers to express each of the senses as they perceive them, but insists that no one veer from what's been choreographed. "They cannot copy the teacher's movement. They understand movement from inside," she says of the group, most of whom have never seen modern dance. "The result ? is like a bare fruit without the peel."

The fruits of their efforts aren't lost on Hernandez. "I receive their skills, their intuition ? how they overcome life's difficulties and continue to communicate with the sensory world," she says.

Choreography consists of first talking about the music and the timing of the dance, then doing the movement in tandem with each dancer, front to back, hands clasped, pushing and pulling limbs and torso. "[What's] important is ... to search for balance, to touch and transform it into dance movement," says Hernandez, who has begun filming a documentary of the group's efforts.