WORKSHOP WILL FOCUS ON DANCE

A special two-day workshop designed to impart training in dance to disabled children will be held today and Saturday in the dance rehearsal hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Seven blind children, as well as more than 40 teachers who work with the handicapped, are expected to attend the workshop to be taught by Carol Penn, a member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center in New York City.

Beginning at 9:30 a.m., the four-hour sessions are sponsored jointly by the Orange County Department of Education and Very Special Arts U.S.A., a national and international organization founded in the 1960s in Washington to give training in the arts to the disabled.

Conceived by choreographer Alvin Ailey, founder of the Alvin Ailey Dance American Dance Theater in New York City, the dance training encourages children to improvise dances which interpret their feelings. The program was launched at the Alvin Ailey Studios in 1983 and was first presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington during the 1984 National Very Special Arts Festival.