| Dancing is good for your health, for weight loss and | | | | them to be more independent |
| for mental relaxation. Everyone loves to dance, | | | | The Gallaudet Dance Company is made up of about |
| including those individuals who just are blind, deaf, | | | | 15 students all of whom are deaf or hard of hearing. |
| missing limbs or confined to a wheelchair. Many | | | | Gallaudet is the worlds only accredited Liberal Arts |
| groups have formed classes to teach these people | | | | University for the hearing impaired. The dancers rely |
| ballroom, line dances, jazz ballet and anything else | | | | on many things utilizing their vision and sign language |
| they may want to learn. | | | | to convey. |
| The Malta Wheelchair Dancesport Association is one | | | | Foreign sources hearing people have obtained into |
| of those groups. Wheelchair dancing had been | | | | the theory that the deaf "hear' by feeling vibrations |
| experienced in parts of the world since the 1970's | | | | through the floor. Although that might work when |
| but wasn't started in Malta until 1999. The group holds | | | | standing still on a surface that will conduct the |
| families to teach dance to disabled people using a | | | | vibrations it would not do much good when you're |
| format very much in-line with that used to teach | | | | moving, jumping, or standing on a concrete floor. The |
| non-disabled people. The families are ready to accept | | | | Gallaudet Dancers practice for hours on end to |
| individuals who just want to learn to dance and | | | | develop an inner sense of the timing for each dance. |
| people who want to dance competitively. | | | | This is accomplished partially by watching an |
| When it relates to the competitive dances there are | | | | instructors counting out the rhythm of the dance. |
| two groups, Combi (one life-partner is in a wheelchair | | | | The instructor will give a signal for each step in |
| the other is not) or Duo (both parties are in | | | | comparable way hearing dancers will get a vocal |
| wheelchairs). They learn all the Standard Ballroom | | | | count from their instructor. |
| dances and the Latin American Ballroom dances. For | | | | Deaf and hearing-impaired dance students work had |
| people who are merely curious about social dancing | | | | to remain " over time" with or without music. The |
| they offer courses for line and solo dances. | | | | most essential things for teaching these students to |
| Wheelchair dancers use their upper bodies and arms | | | | dance are a visual count, high quality sound systems |
| to perform a similar movements in an identical | | | | and use of sign language. |
| manner as non-disabled dancers. Also, no distinctive | | | | Many viewers watched fascinated as Heather Mills |
| from non-disabled dancers, some are good and some | | | | competed for several weeks on Dancing with the |
| aren't but ALL dance because they find it irresistible. | | | | Stars with one prosthetic leg. Not merely was it |
| The dance classes have the additional benefit of | | | | tough to tell which leg it was almost all of the time |
| teaching both the wheelchair users and their helpers | | | | but she performed some high trouble moves that the |
| more and better uses of their chairs encouraging | | | | other dancers didn't even attempt! |