Juggling. We’re all juggling, aren’t we? Racing from work to activities to home to work, in a never-ending loop. But what if the balls we were trying to keep in the air carried more weight? What if dropping one of them meant something really bad might happen to us, something difficult, something damaging? What if we’re born juggling – “risk factors” is the term we’ve coined. What if these risk factors load us up, right from the get-go, with punishing amounts of instability? What if there’s a shortage of food in our home? Or heat? What if one or more of our parents have a disability, or a drinking problem, or issues with drugs? What if our parents are embroiled in a relationship that includes abuse, of mom, of dad, of… me?

The children I work with in the arts, on a daily basis, are at-risk for abuse and neglect. Ranging in age from 2-5, my little students are eager, enthusiastic dancers. But it hasn’t always been this way. Slowly, over time, they’ve come to accept dance in their therapeutic classroom environments. They’ve come to see the scarves and the music as outlets for creative expression, socialization, and fun. Dance helps them to relieve some stress, to smile, to be kids.

The families at the center that my organization partners with are doing everything they can to do the very best for their children. Sometimes, that first step is asking for help; help getting their kids to school, help making sure that their children have a couple of good, nourishing meals per day, help with clothes, help with counseling, help with infants at home, and help, yes, with having fun.

When I teach parent/child dance time at the center, eyes light up and chins lift as if parents want to see their babies and children shine, and see that everything is okay. Dancing, in this setting, is a salve, a balm to heal just the smallest bit of pain and worry. When we’re dancing, we’re too focused on the movement, the answers to “Show me Big! Show me Small!”, to feel anxious about what happens when we get home. We’re just here.

Let me tell a story.

There was a little boy at the center, three years old. He couldn’t speak. He made sounds, like a baby, but no said no words. When he became angry, he yelled, hit, bit, and the like. He didn’t have any delays, except for the abject neglect he’d experienced as a baby and a toddler. No one had interacted with him.

One day, in dance class, we were doing a mirroring activity with scarves. As the teacher, I held the scarf and moved it in different directions, up, down, side-to-side, I made it small and made it big. Then I gave the other children and teachers in the circle a chance to try being a leader.

When it came to this little boy, he took the scarf, and moved it up and down. We all followed. Moving up and down, following his lead.

The little boy smiled, a great big grin. He kept moving the scarf, and we reacted.

Later that day, the same little boy took a scarf from the center’s basket of them, and came over to his classroom teacher. He wanted to play the game again with her. She encouraged him, and he commanded her to move in new ways. She said the words as he moved the scarf: Up, Down, Sideways, Forward, Backwards, on and on.

It was the first time this little boy had related to the staff - the first time he had tried to communicate with them. Soon after, he began developing his own lexicon of gestures and signals, and soon after that, he was talking.

Dance is a powerful cognitive tool, encompassing all other art forms in one.

My work is humble, and the organization I founded is small, but the little people we’re helping are the future. They deserve everything we have.