You won’t see handicapped youth in concert halls, theatres, cafes or even taking public transportation and on the streets. Handicapped people in Armenia are supported by NGOs and they try to find something to do there. Many NGOs do the best they can but very often, NGOs are not able to accomplish all they want to see accomplished due to finances. Some don’t even have certain projects. In Armenia, the handicapped don’t know what the future holds for them and they don’t have the willpower. They are happy to receive any kind of help and, as a rule; the financial and even educational help are not long-term.
More and more people are interested in helping the people with physical, visual and hearing defects. The people with those defects had the opportunity to get help when two dance teachers from Great Britain visited Armenia. The dancers taught 20 handicapped young people staying at the “Will and Power” and “Bridge of Hope” NGOs for 6 days. The “British Council” of Armenia invited Stina Nilsen and Bettina Capri to Armenia and they taught Armenian youth the “Cand.co” dance. “Cando.co” is short for “can do”. In other words, you can feel, move and perfect your body and express your thoughts and ideas through movements. Dance allows healthy and handicapped youth people to have the opportunity to get together and interact. Even if it doesn’t break the barrier between the two, it will at least help make them come together.
Bettina Capri, who is a professional in contemporary dances and “Aykido” sport, tells us:
“Cando.co” is based on movements. We teach them movements so that they can freely move their bodies. The young men and women form duets and those duets are like pictures that move. They form the pieta-Mary and Jesus. We put the famous pictures by Michaelangelo and Caravaggio into action.”
Besides the pietas, the dance teachers are also going to teach the “Symbolic Supper” dance, where “Jesus” is going to be next to the apostles. The dance teachers taught the students the meaning of life and death, light and dark through this dance. The youth with hearing and physical defects were showing silent images and then coming up with new ones. They were learning along with the students of the Institute of Theatre and Cinema of Armenia. The English dance teachers didn’t really have to break the language barrier because after all, dance doesn’t require knowledge of a language. They say that the only thing they do is show the movements, but they can’t tell if the students will apply that. Dance is unpredictable, but the “cando.co” movements are not obligatory. The young dancers are creating their own pietas, which will then turn into a show. The English dance teachers have done this in other countries, including Brazil and Hungary. This was something new for Armenian youth, however, the English dance teachers don’t really care if they will remember the movements or not. They don’t think that Armenian society pays much attention to the handicapped.
“Individuals make up society. Dance makes handicapped and non-handicapped individuals equal. We have come to Armenia not to change society, but to teach dance. Nobody is going to help you improve living conditions for the handicapped. It’s up to you whether or not you will remember the dance movements. We are not here to change Armenia,” said master of Integrated Dance Education Stina Nilsen. Very few people in Armenia actually dare to talk about issues facing the handicapped, but rather try to hide their indifference. Besides the handicapped, who knows how much subsidy they get and how they live on that?