Abstract
Participation in dance programs is associated with physical and psychosocial health among individuals with and without disabilities. However, literature centered on the dance participation experiences of youth with visual impairment remains scarce. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of youth with visual impairments in a 3-week capoeira dance program. Fourteen adolescents with visual impairments (eight boys, six girls, aged 13–18 years old) were selected for participation in this qualitative inquiry. Participants engaged in a specially designed capoeira dance program led by trained instructors and volunteers in a metropolitan area in Turkey. The primary sources of data were semi-structured participant interviews completed after the conclusion of the program. Data were analyzed using a six-step thematic approach and recurrent themes were presented as findings. The authors constructed three themes in the data: (a) “capoeira makes me feel like I’m flying”: fun and freedom learning capoeira; (b) “I’ve never had this kind of close relationship with somebody”: relationships in capoeira training; and (c) “I’m a blind dancer. I did it, right?”: learning capoeira through sound and touch. Together, these findings indicate that dance programs such as capoeira can provide an opportunity for social connection, enjoyment, and physical activity for youth with visual impairments.
Dance provides an alternative and adaptable form of physical activity (PA) that may be practiced in many settings among diverse learners (Prieto et al., 2020). As a form of both PA and creative expression, dance is associated with health benefits including increased cardiorespiratory fitness and psychological well-being among youth with and without disabilities (Burkhardt & Brennan, 2012; Schwender et al., 2018). Highlighting this, in their 2012 review of dance studies conducted among youth populations without disabilities, Burkhardt and Brennan found that the majority of dance-based interventions showed significant improvements in cardiovascular fitness among participants. Similarly, dance interventions have been associated with positive changes in psychological well-being, body image, and attitudes toward PA among youth without disabilities (Burkhardt & Brennan, 2012). For example, in a qualitative study conducted among adolescent girls, participants reported that engaging in a recreational dance program provided them a valuable opportunity for emotional expression, stress relief, enjoyment, and belonging (Duberg et al., 2016).
Among youth with disabilities, research has examined both physical and psychosocial benefits of participation in dance programs (Prieto et al., 2020). In this line of inquiry, physical benefits have been primarily related to characteristics of functional capacity, such as balance and motor control, whereas social benefits tend to include improvements in communication and social engagement (Prieto et al., 2020). Similarly, participation in dance programming was positively associated with positive self-awareness, self-esteem, and confidence (Prieto et al., 2020). For example, in a study conducted among youth with motor disabilities in an improvisational dance program, researchers reported that participants became more confident in their movement abilities as contributors to the group dance practice as the program progressed (Bjorbækmo & Engelsrud, 2011). Likewise, a study conducted among elementary-aged children with disabilities, including some with visual impairments (VI), found that a dance education program created a supportive, pro-social environment in which participants reported feeling a sense of acceptance among peers without disabilities, and enjoyed the challenge of bodily learning associated with the act of dancing (Zitomer, 2016). Zitomer (2016) further concluded that well-planned, supportive dance educational programs may provide valuable opportunities for both movement and social development among youth with disabilities.
Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian art form that can be conceptualized as a “blurred genre” (Downey, 2005, p. 490) that incorporates elements of non-formal PA, dance, martial arts, acrobatics, and games (Jordan et al., 2019; Levin, 2016; Radicchi et al., 2019). Physical techniques in capoeira training include dance-based footwork, acrobatic kicks, strikes, and feints; while musical techniques in capoeira include playing percussion instruments, clapping, and singing (Downey, 2005). Although research centered on capoeira training remains scarce, evidence suggests that such programs confer physical health benefits, including improved cardiovascular fitness and flexibility (Moreira et al., 2017), and quality of life benefits, such as social belonging and positive self-perceptions, among adults (Jordan et al., 2019).
Among youth populations, capoeira training has been employed variously in physical education, sport, cultural, and therapeutic contexts (Downey, 2005; Hast, 2019; Levin, 2016). While little research has investigated the impact of such programs, a few inquiries have found that engagement in capoeira training provided opportunities for meaningful self-expression and social support and connection with others (Hast, 2019; Levin, 2016). For example, recreational capoeira dance training was a foundational component of a therapeutic program for adolescent refugee participants in Jordan. In this study, both program instructors and learners alike attributed changes in feelings of belonging and connection to participation in capoeira training (Hast, 2019). Similarly, in a study of children aged 7–12 years old with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, participants believed that planned and improvised movements they employed in capoeira training was an opportunity for both attentive focus and self-expression (Levin, 2016). In interviews, participants recalled the enjoyment they derived from experimenting with new movements during the flow of training (Levin, 2016).
Despite its utility as a form of alternative PA, means of self-expression, and social opportunity among other populations, capoeira dance experiences among youth with VI have not been investigated in the literature. Investigating alternative forms of PA may be of particular importance for youth with VI, who have been identified as being unlikely to engage in recommended amounts of PA (Haegele, Zhu, et al., 2020) and experience high rates of obesity (Haegele, Foley, & Healy, 2020). Accessible dance programs, such as the capoeira program in the current inquiry, have been identified as an appropriate avenue for such unstructured PA among youth with VI (Seham & Yeo, 2015). Therefore, the purpose of this exploratory study was to explore the experiences of youth with VI in a 3-week capoeira dance program.
Methodology
Research approach
This study used a qualitative descriptive approach and data were analyzed thematically. Sandelowski (2010) considered qualitative description to be a flexible and nonrestrictive set of qualitative methods that allows for “eclectic combinations of sampling, data collection, and data analysis techniques” (p. 78). Qualitative description was considered appropriate for this inquiry because interview questions pertained to both the phenomenon of participants’ lived experiences in the capoeira dance program and their beliefs and perceptions about the meaning of their involvement therein.
Participants
Potential participants were recruited through the national blind sport federation and local partners including a school for the blind and a foundation that provides services for persons with VI. Inclusion criteria included (a) having a mild to total VI, (b) being a school-aged adolescent (i.e., aged 10–18, inclusive), and (c) being willing to participate in a 3-week capoeira dance program. Potential participants and their parents were provided with detailed written information regarding the aims, procedures, and processes of the capoeira dance program, as well as information on confidentiality. All participants’ parents furnished written consent for their child to participate in the study. Following data collection, parents were presented with a transcript of their child’s interview for approval. Ethical approval was provided by the lead researcher’s institutional ethics committee.
In total, 14 adolescents with VI (8 boys and 6 girls, aged 13–18 years) from Turkey participated in this study. Six participants (three boys and three girls) had visual acuities within the International Blind Sport Federation [IBSA] B3 class (i.e., LogMAR 1 and/or a visual field of less than 40 degrees with best possible correction), five participants (three boys and two girls) were in the IBSA B2 class (i.e., LogMAR 1.50–2.60 and/or a visual field of less than 10 degrees), and three participants (two boys and one girl) were in the IBSA B1 class (i.e., LogMAR of less than 2.60, equivalent to minimal to no light perception). Several medical causes of VI were reported among participants including albinism, glaucoma, optic atrophy, juvenile cataracts, retinal disorders, corneal diseases, and other trauma to the eyes.
Procedure
The capoeira dance program’s content was designed to create an environment of freedom, social interaction, and enjoyment among participants, instructors, and volunteers (Assunção, 2005, 2014). In keeping with earlier programs designed for beginners, instructors selected capoeira techniques that were most suitable for novice learners and emphasized aspects of capoeira training that were centered most around dance, rather than combat-related strategy (Jordan et al., 2019). Training sessions were held twice per week for 3 weeks. Each of the six 60-min sessions followed a similar pattern (Table 1). First, participants completed a 5-min warm-up that included jogging, dynamic stretching, and reviewing the ginga (i.e., fundamental side-to-side footwork). During the main body of each session, participants learned and practiced new and familiar capoeira techniques. Finally, each session closed with a 15-min cool down consisting of static stretches. Sessions were taught by a female instructor with 13 years of experience and her four male assistants, each of whom had experience teaching and learning capoeira. Four undergraduate sport sciences majors provided additional assistance with orientation and mobility and helping participants learn the capoeira techniques during each session.
Example of capoeira dance lesson plan for youth with VI.
VI: visual impairment.
Before the program began, volunteers and instructors completed a 16-hr training course on adapted PA for youth with VI. Topics included instructional techniques for individuals with VI (e.g., hand-over-hand, hand-under-hand, and enhanced verbal description), adaptations to exercises, and safety considerations for teaching youth with VI. The training course was led by the lead researcher who holds a doctoral degree in adapted PA and currently works as an adapted PA lecturer and as a national goalball coach. During the training, instructors and volunteers were instructed to assist as needed on an individual basis based on the needs of each participant, and to be reflexive with their assistance by considering the requests of the participants. In this way, the intensity, duration, and type of assistance provided throughout the program was largely guided by the participants, rather than the instructors and volunteers. In addition, volunteers completed a 60-min presentation on the objectives and techniques of the capoeira dance program taught by the lead capoeira instructor and the lead researcher.
Data collection
The primary sources of data were semi-structured interviews with participants following completion of the capoeira dance program. The interview guide was designed to gain insight into their experiences in the program and the meaning that it held. Following the initial construction of the interview guide, questions were pilot tested through an interview with a youth with a VI not enrolled in this particular study. Examples of interview questions include: “how did you feel about working with new people (e.g., instructors and volunteers) during the program,” “how did you feel about the capoeira dance program,” “what challenges did you encounter as you were learning in the class,” and “how did learning capoeira dance make you feel?” The one-on-one interviews, ranging from 30 to 40 min in length, were conducted by the lead researcher in Turkish and audio recorded. Each interview was transcribed verbatim and translated to English by the lead researcher before prior to conducting thematic analysis.
Data analysis
According to Sandelowski (2010), the qualitative descriptive approach is not epistemologically tied to a singular data analysis technique. Instead, researchers working in this paradigm may choose to employ analyses that best fit the purpose of the inquiry. Thematic analysis was chosen for this study because it is well-suited for identifying and exploring participant experiences or feelings that recur across a dataset (Braun et al., 2016). The lead researcher followed a six-step analytical approach described by Braun and colleagues (2016). First, the lead researcher read and reread the interviews to familiarize himself with the data. Next, the lead researcher generated initial codes and applied them across all interviews via constant comparison. Generated initial codes were shared with a critical friend, who checked and challenged the initial codes to help deepen the first author’s engagement and understanding of the codes. The critical friend [she] is a lecturer at the university of the first author in the area of sport pedagogy and has an expertise and knowledge in data analysis in thematic analysis. She double checked the generated initial codes, challenged them, and provided alternative perspectives for some generated codes. Once a consensus was reached, related codes were then clustered into initial themes. These themes were reviewed by both the lead researcher and the critical friend to ensure that all codes reflected the themes they supported. Once themes were firmly established, they were defined and named. At this point, attention was also paid to ensuring that each participant’s voice was represented in the presentation of the narrative. Finally, constructed themes were reported as findings.
Several measures were taken to support the quality, or trustworthiness, of the results of this study. Reliability was enhanced by engaging two academicians working in the field in the coding process during data analysis (McConnell-Henry et al., 2011). The rigor and commitment of the study were supported through the utilization of an interview guide that was inspired by the study purpose and developed using an expert panel and pilot testing procedures. The selection of a reasonably homogeneous participant cohort and thorough description of critical elements of the research process (e.g., interview procedures, data treatment and analysis) support the rigor and coherence of the study. In addition, a form of member checking was utilized, where parents reviewed and approved of transcripts prior to data analysis. However, member checking of constructed themes was not employed in this study, because of its incongruence with research pursuing interpretative endeavors (McConnell-Henry et al., 2011).
Findings
The purpose of this study was to explore the meaning and experiences of youth with VI following participation in a 3-week capoeira dance program. Three themes were constructed based on the thematic analysis: (a) “Capoeira makes me feel like I’m flying”: Fun and freedom learning capoeira, (b) “I’ve never had this kind of close relationship with somebody”: Relationships in capoeira training, and (c) “I’m a blind dancer. I did it, right?”: Learning capoeira through sound and touch. These themes are presented with supporting quotes from participants and discussed in the following sections.
“Capoeira made me feel like I’m flying”: fun and freedom learning capoeira
The first theme pertained to participants’ perceptions that the capoeira dance program was a fun, exciting, and liberating experience. Participants reflected upon their excitement at learning new concepts during their time in the program, including learning terms from another language and culture. For example, a female participant reflected that “capoeira made [her] really, really happy,” in part because of the enjoyment she derived from learning the names of capoeira movements in Portuguese, saying: “ginga, ginga, ginga (the fundamental step in capoeira) . . . what a wonderful word! I didn’t know that dance moves have names like people and animals [do]!” A male participant echoed her sentiment, adding that learning both new words and the physical skills they described was “so fun” and a unique and meaningful aspect of the program: “[I learned] ginga . . . and martelo (a capoeira kick) . . . I danced and learned so many Portuguese words! Now I can speak another language, you know?”
Beyond its novelty, participants also recalled feeling a deeper sense of excitement during the program that they attributed to the physicality of the capoeira training. For example, one female participant said that she looked forward to each training session because: Capoeira made me feel like I’m flying. My mom said flying is when your body does not touch the ground . . . capoeira gave me that feeling . . . it was amazing! I enjoyed a lot . . . I wish the program wasn’t over.
Overall, participants found that the activities of the capoeira program were unlike those that they typically engaged in during their day-to-day lives. One female participant summarized the contrast clearly, explaining that “you know that you live in a restrictive world, but when you’re dancing it’s so cool that you walk, dance, move, and use your arms and legs with no stress.” Likewise, a male participant found capoeira training to be “amazing” because of the sense of independence it provided. He noted that I live in a very restricted environment. My parents are always around me because I’m blind, so without them I can’t do my daily activities. With capoeira (laughs), I was free. [During capoeira] I had, no worries, no anxiety, no fear.
Participants considered the capoeira dance program to be a safe environment in which they could be free to be physically active without concerns of hurting themselves or those around them. Highlighting this, one female participant explained that It’s great to get to move around without being afraid that I will bump into something and hurt myself. [In capoeira practice], I can move around [freely] while I’m listening to music, dancing, and being active . . . it is so great!
“I’ve never had this kind of close relationship with somebody”: relationships in capoeira training
In addition to the sense of fun and freedom, the impact of interpersonal interactions during the capoeira dance program was clear. In general, participants recalled positive impressions of the social relationships that they developed with the instructors or volunteers that they worked with each session. For example, one female participant valued the program in part because it allowed her to form a close friendship with one of the program volunteers, whom she described as “so kind and gentle.” The participant further explained that they “became best buds (Turkish: kanka)” during the program and beyond, and that this relationship enhanced her enjoyment of the capoeira dance program, adding “practicing capoeira with her was amazing.” One of the older male participants also reflected fondly upon the interactions he had with program volunteers, and he admitted that he was surprised that capoeira training yielded such close relationships. He said, I’ve never had this kind of close relationship with somebody I don’t personally know in my life, other than my relatives. I wouldn’t have thought that I would get this close [with people] in a foreign environment, but . . . it was the music, musical instruments, people dancing together. I can’t believe, as a young man, I got to do this stuff – having friends, making contact . . . socializing together – [it was] perfect!
While most participants described positive relationships with program staff, at least one participant reported an example of a less affirming relationship during the program. A female participant recalled experiencing a stressful interpersonal interaction with one of the instructors that she attributed to the difficulty she had following verbal and visual instructions. She described being concerned that the instructor “sometimes got frustrated because [she] couldn’t see [the instructor] demonstrating the movement,” and because she “always needed a volunteer to help” her understand the technique. As such, despite the close positive relationships experienced by many of the participants, this phenomenon was not universal in the program, and at least one participant experienced a strained relationship with her instructor that she attributed to her instructor being frustrated with the pace in which she learned.
“I’m a blind dancer. I did it, right?”: learning capoeira through sound and touch
The final theme pertained to the process of learning capoeira dance and musical instrument techniques through verbal instruction, auditory cues, and touch; an experience that the participants found both challenging and rewarding during the course of the program. For example, the female participant who described her instructor’s frustration in the previous passage went on to explain that although it took her many repetitions, she persisted and eventually learned the techniques. She explained that There has be a certain harmony between capoeiristas (capoeira players) and the music . . . [but] I cannot remember how many times I had to practice [the basic moves], maybe thirty? . . . The instructor admitted that I learned slowly . . . but in the end she said that my technique was good.
In this passage, this female participant highlighted the importance of repetitious practice, which helped her master a sound technique despite taking longer to practice than other capoeiristas. Another female participant recalled using a variety of tactile learning techniques including “doing the moves together” in physical contact with her instructor “like two friends,” and touching her instructors’ arms and legs as they completed the movement (i.e., hand-under-hand instruction), which was a process that she described as sometimes difficult. She continued, I had to perform ginga followed by the meia-lua de frente (a kicking technique) . . . It was tough because she had to freeze . . . [so that I could] understand the sequences, movements, and pay attention to the music at the same time . . . but in the end, I got the idea.
This participant’s passage highlights the utility of hand-under-hand instruction for learning complex movements, like those associated with capoeira.
While many of the participants recalled positive and meaningful learning experiences, these experiences took time and repetition to gain any learning. For example, one participant remembered feeling some initial confusion when their instructor told them that they should be “like a puppet” during portions of the tactile learning process: My instructor had to stand behind me and I had to relax my muscles to let him [move my body through] the movements . . . we did it vice versa, too. I had to control my body and follow his instructions while keeping with the music. He told me like we had to be like one person. I couldn’t understand it at first, but after some practice we did it.
For this participant, the ambiguous nature of the instructions appeared to be a challenge for them to navigate during the initial presentation of materials. Unique to many of the other participants, one noted that it was his lack of light perception had an impact on the duration of the learning process, he believed his determination coupled with the support of his instructors eventually yielded a positive result. He recalled that Unfortunately, I’m totally blind . . . born blind. Some of my friends [here] have some sort of vision . . . but I’m a blind dancer. I did it, right? We did lots of lots of practice together, my instructor and I – you can’t imagine how many practices we did – but in the end, I mean, my blindness was not a barrier and I can dance. So that counts for something!
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of youth with VI in a 3-week capoeira dance program. Across the three themes, the participants provided largely positive accounts of their experiences in the capoeira dance program. Generally, these positive depictions of the experience were credited to the enjoyment and freedom participants attributed to learning capoeira movements, their engagement with the program volunteers, and the utilization of instructional strategies that helped to facilitate their learning.
As depicted in the first theme, the participants found learning capoeira to be a fun, safe, and liberating experience that they were excited to engage in prior to and during each session. This finding is encouraging, as identifying non-traditional forms of PA that may be safe and enjoyable for youth with VI may be one mechanism that can help remediate current PA deficiencies in this population (Haegele, Zhu, et al., 2020). Also encouraging is that participants appeared to recall supportive messages from their parents about participating. This is a departure from prior research, which has demonstrated that youth with VI tend to receive little parental encouragement to engage in activities because of safety concerns (Ward et al., 2011). Within the context of dance, Seham and Yeo (2015) reported that while parents of youth with VI believed that dance programs could provide valuable opportunities for PA and socialization for their children, they also harbored concerns about the safety and accessibility of many of the programs that were readily available in their communities. As such, it appears the safe and enjoyable nature of the capoeira dance program provided an experience that was supportive of the participants and may have relieved some parental concern. This is promising, as it may open the door for youth with VI to experience the psychological and physiological benefits that are regularly associated with dance-related programs (Burkhardt & Brennan, 2012; Schwender et al., 2018). However, claims about the psychological and physiological benefits of capoeira training in particular must be presented with caution, as empirical work centered on capoeira training, including with youth with VI, is limited (Moreira et al., 2017).
Dance programs can act as a positive pro-social environment in which youth with disabilities, including those with VI, can engage in social development, social engagement, and peer acceptance (Matawa, 2009; Prieto et al., 2020; Zitomer, 2016). These assertions can be extended to capoeira programs, which have been shown to support social belonging among participants in previous research (Jordan et al., 2019). Results of the current study aligned with some elements of positive social engagement, as participants valued the favorable social interactions that they enjoyed with their program volunteers. These findings are valuable, as students with VI have been identified as being less likely than their peers to engage in both opportunities for active leisure and social situations with new people (Wolffe & Sacks, 1997). While the participants ascribed meaning to their social interactions with their program volunteers and instructors, it is notable that none mentioned enhanced social engagement with their peers in the program. It is possible that this is a result of the structure of the program, where participants worked closely with their program volunteers for the majority of each session. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to explore the social dynamics between participants of capoeira dance programs, to understand if explicated social development and peer acceptance benefits associated with dance programs (Matawa, 2009; Prieto et al., 2020) are available for youth with VI in these settings.
In the current study, one of the challenges that participants faced concerned kinesthetic awareness of their bodies. This challenge was exacerbated at times when instructors used ambiguous phrases (“like a puppet”) to attempt to describe how participants should manipulate or move their bodies to engage in capoeira movements. While this was viewed as a challenge by at least one participant, many recalled that they were successful in learning the movements after many repetitions. This may speak to several important instructional characteristics of the program, such as an emphasis on enjoyment and use of tactile modeling. In general, participants reported enjoying both the content of the program and the social interactions they had with in it. Together, these features helped to form an encouraging and supportive environment where the participants were excited to continue to be engaged (Aujla & Needham-Beck, 2020). Second, the instructors utilized instructional techniques that are considered appropriate to help instruct learners with VI in bodily movements (O’Connell et al., 2006). For example, the instructors employed hand-under-hand instructional techniques, also known as tactile modeling, in which the learner inspects a demonstrator by feeling or exploring the demonstrator’s body throughout the duration of the movement (O’Connell et al., 2006). According to O’Connell and colleagues (2006), this process can be beneficial as it is a learner-led learning opportunity where, instead of being physically manipulated, the learner can choose to investigate the movement of the demonstrator in ways they find most beneficial. Participants described these benefits clearly and noted that the physical contact of hand-under-hand helped with learning complex and multi-faceted movements. In this study, the utilization of hand-under-hand, along with the supportive nature of the instructors, was meaningful in ensuring that participants learned from and enjoyed the capoeira training program. However, it is important to note that hand-under-hand is not always an appropriate instructional technique, and instructors must engage in active and reciprocal communication with students prior to and during the implementation of this teaching strategy.
Conclusion
Research indicates that dance programs, including capoeira training programs, can have meaningful benefits for individuals with and without disabilities (Hast, 2019; Prieto et al., 2020). This study supports these prior assertions, where participants found the capoeira training program to be an exciting and enjoyable experience. The findings of this study support the utility of the capoeira training program for youth with VI, which may make this Afro-Brazilian martial dance (Jordan et al., 2019) a viable option to implement elsewhere for this population. Through the current inquiry, we identified some important considerations for designing such programs. First, designers of accessible capoeira programs facilitate environments that foster supportive relationships between participants and instructional staff. Second, appropriate instructional techniques (e.g., hand-under-hand) should be implemented in such programs to improve their accessibility and value. While this study took place in one specific context (e.g., Turkey), researchers and practitioners working with youth with VI should consider embedding this non-traditional activity as part of their school, recreation, or camp program and continue to evaluate its utility in promoting PA and social engagement with peers.
