Our Mission: Empowering Blind Individuals, Promoting Opportunities, and Building Belief in the Blind.

Blind Persons Enjoy Square Dancing

The Roundup (a Square Dance association’s newsletter)
January/February 2005, Vol. 54, No. 1, Page 10

 

Nine blind persons are learning some basic moves of square dancing. Shawn Lange who is blind and a client of Nebraska Nebraska Center for the Blind for the Blind in Lincoln suggested that square dancing would be a good activity for his fellow clients. With the help of his parents, John and Tammy Lange; Fatos Floyd, Director of the Nebraska Center for the Blind; and Mary Truax, President of Chix 'N Chasers square dance club, the first lesson was scheduled at the Broken Wheel in Lincoln on November 6, 2004. Square dance caller Jerry Wright agreed to teach the lessons.

 

Jennifer Miller, Apartment Resource Counselor at the Center, was their chauffeur and is also enjoying the lessons. She plans weekend activities for the clients and says learning to dance is fun and also the clients are practicing the skills of orientation and mobility as well as building confidence, which is a part of the Center's 6 to 9 month training program.

 

While the Center houses 11 to 14 clients, many are residents of Lincoln and commute by bus to the Center daily for schooling. Mary Johnson is such a client. She likes to dance and knows some folk dances. She says that she hopes to learn enough of square dancing to some day be able to attend a dance with sighted dancers.

 

Pablo Suraz was a teacher at Southeast Community College as an automotive electronics professor before becoming blind in 2003. He is planning to go to South America soon to investigate medical help for his eyesight. Taking the schooling for him is to prepare him for travel and he hopes to regain his teaching position. For him the square dancing is a good place to practice orientation skills needed. That means learning where he is in relationship to other persons and in a large or unfamiliar room.

 

Mike Schmitt is from Pittsburgh, PA and is a resident client at the Center. He learned of the Nebraska school through his local blind resources. For him and for Roy Brooks the dancing is fun and something to do on the weekend.

 

Jerry Wright appears to be enjoying teaching the class. He has had to change his teaching to meet the learning needs of the blind such as describing moves by verbal instructions and not to use any visual type of reference point. It is not easy to correct a dancer's position by using only verbal directions and without using your hands. Both the caller and the angels are learning much from the blind dancers.

 

Several of the dancers' angels attended an open house at the Center on December 4. Many interesting facts and information about the blind community were learned during the orientation.

 

Floyd gave her audience the information that throughout the nation, there are several such centers and some are State run while some are private schools. Nationwide 70 to 75% of blind people are unemployed while only 8% of the Center graduates are unemployed. This is a testimony of the success of the Center.

 

With the clients at the Center graduating and moving on in their lives, who knows, they may take square dancing back to their own families and even to other states.

 

(Inserted note: The article shows a photograph of the blind dancers, labeled as follows.)

Square dancers from Nebraska Nebraska Center for the Blind for the Blind. Dancers from left: Mary Johnson, Dave Huntwork, Ashley Meza, Angie Larson, Mike Schmitt, Roy Brooks, Pablo Suraz, Shawn Lange.

 

[The "angels" mentioned in this article are further described in an article on page 8 of this issue titled "Angels of Square Dance", which starts off: "They are the wonderful people who introduce square dancing to others, bring others to square dance classes, aid the caller/teacher by filling the squares so that all class members may dance."]

 

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