“Merry Circle” Square Dance Club
for people with restricted capability in Pskov/Russland
Traudel Walz, Deutsch Russische Square Dance Freunde

Founded by the caller Katja Erschova, who, following her marriage, is now a proud mother, this special project is being continued very well by Vera Simagina. The difficulties in working together with mentally handicapped persons lie not only in learning and exercising the figures, but in constantly repeating the same program. The dancers are able to learn more than 20 figures of the basic program, but without continuous repetition they forget the square dance program again entirely. It takes some time to teach and to learn the figures again. The people have to refresh each figure after just one month’s absence. Nevertheless they recollect the figures quickly because they wish to perform on stage. Though not all the figures are always well done, the joy and the happiness in their faces, and the gleam in their eyes compensate for everything.

We watched these dancers in Pskov at their meeting on Sunday morning. It was really an overwhelming experience. Thank you Katja for starting this project and thank you too Vera for your commitment to continue and improve this unique and very important program.