But for more than a year and a half, Connecting Through Dance has taught volunteering "guide dancers" how to dance as well as how to teach the blind and visually impaired, proving you don't need great vision to be light on your toes. Just a good heart and plenty of practice.

Each Friday, volunteers are trained at the Lake Merritt Dance Center, learning dances such as salsa, swing, tango, cha-cha and many others. The free five-week training course teaches the sighted volunteers how to dance and how to work with their visually impaired partners.

"If they've never had any dance training, they can use this as a way of learning to dance and make a contribution to the blind community," said Gene Russo, founder of the program.

He said the program was originally designed to teach the sighted volunteers alongside the blind, but now the volunteers are taught the basics first, learning how to explain foot positions with their hands and teaching their partner how to transfer them to their feet, a technique called "hand dancing."

"Sighted people are shy about interacting with the blind," Russo said. If volunteers have never worked with the blind, they're taught ways to interact and helpful terminology.

"We work with a lot of people who have recently gone blind," Russo said. "They are people who are adjusting to a new way of life. We're helping them cross over to social aspects of being blind."

The blind and visually impaired participants come from different facilities in the East Bay. The program is free for volunteer guide dancers, but donations can be made to sponsor blind students, who pay around $38 to be part of the program.

Ilene Erickson, a guide dancer from Walnut Creek, said she had experience working with blind people when she was younger, but dancing with them has changed many of her perceptions.

"They are a lot more approachable than I realized," she said. "This particular group of people is very, very bright. People underestimate their emotional capacity as well as their intellectual capacities. They are very mobile."

The training course takes place on Fridays in January, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the Lake Merritt Dance Center, 200 Grand Avenue, Oakland. There is a $42 deposit required, which will be refunded upon completion of the program.

For more information on the guide dancer program or Connecting Through Dance, call (510) 501-4713.

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Leanne McLaughlin, Managing Editor
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