Hannah Millbank and here children enjoy a moving, engaging performance that helps them to appreciate the challenges of dyslexia
Whenever I watch a one-man-show, whether it’s a musician or actor, it never fails to amaze me that one person can hold a crowd single-handedly. Dancer Subhash Viman Gorania not only managed to hold a crowd, but the crowd he held were filled with as many children as there were adults.
As he stepped into the circle of large silver round fans on the Bristol Old Vic’s Weston Studio stage, silence descended on the previously chattering audience. He opened with a stuttering body-popping, clapping, stamping routine, that instantly transported us into a world where words, bodies and visuals combine; a world that, for some, can be hard to process.
Diagnosed with dyslexia as a young boy, Aakash Odedra, the choreographer behind this moving performance, only discovered that he’d been spelling his name wrong at the age of 21. Defined by his learning difficulties throughout school, when he finally ‘found his missing A’ as a young adult, Aakash turned to dance to express himself.
Through visual technology, flocking birds, explosions of light and shadows dance with the performer as he takes us into Aakash’s reality, a world that doesn’t always make sense.
As he repeatedly asks the audience, “How long does it take to correct a mistake?’” my two sons and I were drawn in by the scene that unfolded in front of us as the dancer found, and lost again, his missing A. At one point, sheets of paper swirled around the stage causing giggles to ripple through the audience, but the mood swiftly changed as he cried out in anguish as he, once again, mislaid the letter it had taken so long for him to find, the letter that had completed him.
Short and visually engaging enough for young children to follow (recommended for ages seven upwards), the performance made you feel like you were seeing things through the eyes of another. And the emotion felt by the frustrations and challenges of the performer, was transferred to all of us as we watched, helpless to assist in his search.
Commissioned by The Spark Arts by Children, an organisation whose core aim is to give young people opportunities to immerse themselves in the arts, this is more than a dance and drama performance. Little Murmur invites you into Aakash Odedra’s personal experience, it allows children, both those with and without dyslexia, a chance to feel part of the same thing.
Little Murmur was at the Bristol Old Vic from 16 to 18 February and continues its run at Ipswich, Belfast, the Outer Hebrides, Hackney, Salford and Leicester.