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Dancing on the Edge of the World

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A song and dance over birds

October 30, 2022 Don Knowler

A group of children were invited to spread their wings and shake their tail feathers earlier this month – to gain an appreciation of birds.
I unwittingly found myself a part of the action when I stumbled on the nature program on my daily ramble through the Waterworks Reserve. But I was soon in harmony, if not in step, with this initiative led by environmental educator and dance teacher Alejandra Osorio Iturriaga.
I’ve been involved in many education projects over the years, visiting Hobart schools here and there, but I’ve never seen anything like this.
The children were encouraged to imagine they are birds, scurrying across kangaroo grass as a fairywren, waddling as a penguin, or soaring like an eagle on outstretched arms.
Some of the routines were conducted to Latina dance music, from Alejandra’s homeland of Chile.
Alejandra’s mantra is a simple one. Instead of merely showing children pictures of birds, she gives them a moving image using dance.
“Through the body you create memory,” she said, “You learn the movement of birds. It’s through the body, not so much the mind.”
It was the same principle as learning to ride a bicycle, she said. Once the skill was learnt it was not forgotten.
The children, aged five-to-seven years, certainly enjoyed this new form of nature study. Along with the dancing, the children were told to stop and listen to the birds.
They were soon mimicking the call of a fan-tailed cuckoo spotted in the trees above them, and then doing an impromptu dance combining the tail-shake of a grey fantail to a routine for the cuckoo, singing the cuckoo’s descending twitter of a song at the same time.
And there was a bonus along the way. One of the children discovered a scarlet robin’s nest from last year’s breeding season, with a lining of wallaby fur.
The bird-dance event is run by the Hobart Council’s Bush Adventures program and, viewed in a wider context, it mimics the way the birds themselves educate their young through song.
One of the most striking similarities between humans and birds is their ability to dance and to make music. There are few other animals that can create complex musical phrases — dolphins and whales are other examples — but the ability is rare.
In evolutionary terms, the ancestors of modern birds and humans diverged more than 310 million years ago yet both evolved to use music as a form of communication, especially with their young.
The day of dance was not just about birds. The children learned of the first nations people who had gone before them, and how they in turn were in tune with their environment.
The focus, though, soon returned to the birds. Closing the program, the children clapped and said thanks to their feathered friends, acknowledging this fun exercise would not have been possible without them.

On The Wing

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