M D Riti on an unusual dance school in Bangalore.

Their dance movements are as graceful and synchronised as those of most other Bharatanatyam troupes. Only, they are a little more noisy when they thump their feet, and with good reason. The eight dancers of the Natyanjali dance troupe are all severely visually challenged, and rely almost entirely on their hearing to detect the positions of fellow dancers.

Yet, thanks to their guru K Ashok Kumar, Natyanjali stages dance recitals all over the world, and its members have managed to achieve what most classical dancers dream of. They are all professional performers, and make a living out of this art. They also supplement it with other avenues of self employment that Kumar has made possible for them.

The troupe has done over 500 shows all over the world.

Now, Kumar, who makes a living as a dance teacher for the sighted, and runs his own dance school with about 75 students in Bangalore, has set himself his next target. And that is to raise money for a hostel for the blind, so that young people like his students can have a place to stay while they try to study or find means of livelihood in the city.

The proceeds of every foreign dance tour goes towards making one fully trained dancer financially independent. The individual is helped by setting up an STD booth or starting some other business like a travel agency or weaving mill.

"I never ever imagined I would be a professional dancer some day," says Buse Gowda, 27, one of the troupe's star performers, who goes by the stage name of Mayura.

Gowda fell into a slush pit in his village in Mandya district, the home district of Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna, when he was barely seven years old. He was treated with some herbs for this, and lost his eyesight as a consequence.

His fellow dancer Tharaka Ramudu, who lives with his parents in Bangalore, was not born blind either. His optic nerve was irreparably damaged when he was just five years old. But their friend Shivaswamy has been blind since his birth.

Gowda, Ramudu and the others in their troupe, like Satish and Guruprasad, were school students at the Ramana Maharishi Academy for the Blind in Bangalore. This school was started by social workers T V Srinivasan and Thirumurthy in a single room of the former's house with an initial capital of just Rs 60 and one student, in 1969. Now, it is an established and reputed residential school for the visually impaired in Bangalore.

Kumar was then 21 years old, almost 15 years ago, when he happened to walk into this academy. Srinivasan invited him to choreograph a special folk dance for their school anniversary concert. This was simple enough for Kumar, who was a skilled soloist. But how was he going to teach boys and girls who could not watch him dance?

Without the faintest idea about how he was going to achieve the impossible, Kumar gathered several blind students in a classroom, and started demonstrating steps and mudras to them, exactly as he would to a group of the sighted. Obviously, the assembled students could not figure out what he was doing.

Suddenly, a 13-year-old boy simply broke out of the group, walked up to Kumar and did what he normally did whenever he could not understand what was being taught. He started touching Kumar's hands and feet, and tried to mimic his stance and movements.

"It was such a strange sensation," says Kumar. "I felt extremely uncomfortable."

"I was just doing what I normally do when I perceive something that I had never experienced before and could not understand," explains Gowda now. "I touch it all over and try to understand it."

Kumar squirmed at first. Then he saw Gowda slowly making awkward movements that were a little like the ones he was trying to teach. "I suddenly saw the light," says Kumar. "It was like reaching the end of a dark tunnel."

Kumar began striking dance poses and asked the students to approach him -- two by two -- touch him and find out his stance. They did. He, then began asking them to hold him while he executed simple steps and mudras. Soon, he had a working teaching model, that he named the touch-and- feel method. A fortnight later, the students were able to perform a simple folk dance at their anniversary show.

The success of this show inspired Kumar to try something even better. He asked Srinivasan whether he could teach the students Bharatanatyam regularly. Ever the optimist, Srinivasan agreed readily. And Kumar suddenly found a calling in life. He began teaching the students regularly through a technique that he evolved as he went along.

First, he began by teaching 25 students the basic steps. It was far from easy.

But he was not the only one struggling. The students too say they found it extraordinarily tough. Even Gowda, who had done folk dance before, found classical dance a different ball game. "You can be a little casual or inaccurate in folk dance movements, but in classical dance, every move has to be perfectly correct," he explains.

Kumar confesses to having felt a little discouraged and frustrated at times, but his students made up for all the patience he lacked and were determined to master this new challenge.

After the students got the basics right, Kumar began choreographing special pieces for them. "The regular items were too complex for them to try at first," he says now. The troupe gave its first public performance in 1988.

Slowly, they grew from small, simple dances to a full ballet. Their very first ballet performance was titled Shakti.

From then onwards, the ride was much easier, and quickly took them to the top. Their next ballet was the Ramayana. As their popularity increased, invitations started coming from different parts the country. Kumar choreographed their third ballet, Namada Phala, based on the environment. This ballet featured Kumar's sighted students with the visually challenged, and audiences could barely distinguish between the fluidity of the movements of the two.

The group even danced at the major sabhas of Chennai, which every rising classical artiste aspires to do.

Then came the ballet Dances of India, featuring various classical dance forms from all over the country. After this, the troupe began to travel overseas. UK, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong...

At present, their repertoire includes Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, folk dances and dance ballets. Gowda has even won a national award for his outstanding achievement in the field of creative art work. The troupe itself has been commended by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Meanwhile, Natyanjali has helped to educate 35 blind students, and is supporting a blind student pursue a degree in engineering.

The troupe practises for about four hours every morning. Kumar no longer works for Srinivasan's school, but continues to work with the students of his troupe, as well as four or five new blind students.

Why does he not want to continue his work at the blind school? "I did not see dance taking those students anywhere," he confesses.

"So I decided to focus on these visually challenged dancers who have committed themselves to dance as a profession, and set up a hostel and other facilities to help others like them live in the city. Once that is done, one could see how many more new such dancers show the commitment that these students have displayed. Otherwise, the dancers simply learn for a while and then go back to their villages, and that's an end to it." Even now, the girls in the troupe return to their villages, and come back to Natyanjali only when a performance has been scheduled, which is hardly adequate.

It has not been simple for Kumar. Emoting the bhavas was especially tough. "It is difficult to show someone with no perception of colour how to show moods," he says.

Kumar also noticed that students suddenly became conscious about their appearance too. Their hair was styled professionally and dresses given more attention. Students also say their personalities began to change subtly. "I became a softer person," says Satish. "We developed the idea of having a clear goal and working towards it," says Shivaswamy, who is also doing a BA degree from St Joseph's College in Bangalore.

Their families and friends too began to perceive them differently. They were thrilled to see them on televison or on stage. "They never imagined that we would lead such colourful lives some day," says Ramudu. "They love listening to our experiences and stories of our travel, which are far more extensive than that of our siblings."

Can more visually challenged students follow in their footsteps and become the new cultural ambassadors for India? Already there are at least one or two such similar dance troupes in Bangalore.

However, Kumar feels it is best to limit himself to this one troupe, and be content with replacing dancers that retire with fresh talent. And he is already equipping the existing dancers to pursue alternate careers which will ultimately replace dance as their true vocation. Two of them, Guruprasad and Satish, are now married, and the former has a child.

"Dance can, at best, be a short term profession for the visually challenged," he says pragmatically. "Once these young girls and boys age, they will have to stop dancing as professionals completely. They cannot hope to fall back on careers as dance teachers: how many sighted parents will send their children to visually challenged teachers? And teaching, as everyone knows, is the main vocation for retired dancers."

Design: Dominic Xavier

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