Body perception for visually impaired through dance

Abstract

For the visually impaired, dance facilitates the world interaction. That way, phenomenology study in Merleau-Ponty allows us to make a connection with the dance and deficiency when portraying the human being uses the sensations to interact and experience the world. The study aimed to understand how the visually impaired notice the senses (hearing and touch) during the practice of dance being based on Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, through a literature review. Dance is one of the oldest arts used as a form of body expression. For the visually impaired, it provides a path that enables the connection with the world and people through offered sensations when moving. Visual deficiency is characterized by the absence of vision, which may be congenital or acquired, but regardless of the type, the fact of not being able to see is not an obstacle to the learning, personal experiences, experiences and discoveries of the being and world. For Merleau-Ponty (1999) everything is solved when the essences are defined, in the dance the essence is always present because is allowed to express what we really are through non-verbal expression. Thereby, Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology has interfaced with visual impairment and dance by portraying that the human being needs and uses the sensations to interact, try and discover himself in the world. Dance can be inserted into the life of the visually impaired as a way to improve his autonomy, self-esteem and quality of life.