Dance is any language. (Young Dancer[R]).

Abdou N'Dir's odyssey from a farming village in Africa to the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance School in Denver, Colorado, began when he was only 7. That's when he met Judy Beggs Pierson, the first blonde woman he had ever seen. A lawyer from Denver with a grown daughter and a bad case of wanderlust, Pierson traveled to Gueoul (pronounced GAY-ool), a village of 2,000 in Senegal, as a Peace Corps member in 1990. After unpacking her bags in the spare room at N'Dir's grandmother's house, she settled in to do what she came to do--find problems to solve. One of the first things she set about fixing was N'Dir.

Three years earlier a car had hit him and broken his right leg. When Pierson met him, he had infections in both legs and could take only a few steps at a time, bending his legs into Zs at the knees and ankles to ease the pain. His grandmother's folk medicine was making it worse; her tree-and-leaf paste rubbed off his healing skin. So N'Dir sat in Pierson's room and drew pictures of trucks while she worked at her desk. Pierson wrote a friend coming to visit from the United States and asked her to bring antibiotics.

N'Dir healed and returned to his chores in the peanut fields and his favorite pastimes, soccer and dance. After the evening meal, he and his friends turned over their food bowls to make drums. They formed a circle and drummed in the traditional way with one hand, one stick. From oldest to youngest, they took turns jumping into the middle to dance solos. "I'd always wait for his turn, because he was just the best," said Pierson.

"It was just for fun," N'Dir replied with a hint of embarrassment. "You're supposed to outgrow dancing when you're about 14." His voice is almost too soft to hear, his English embellished by traces of French and Wolof, the native language of most Senegalese.

People who know N'Dir talk about his smile. It lights his face, revealing not only brilliant white teeth but also the promise of a warm and humorous personality that may not emerge in words. Seeing him smile, you want to see him dance.

His dancing is athletic and exuberant. As she watched him move in Gueoul, Pierson imagined him a professional dancer in the United States. Five years later, Pierson met Cleo Parker Robinson at a reception for the dance school, in Denver. Knowing the school prized African dance, she told Robinson about the boy she knew in Senegal.

Robinson recalled this moment: "I remember it vividly. I just said, `Sure, bring him here.' I get requests from a lot of people who have visions," she explained, beaming at the memory, "but Judy was different. Here was this beautiful woman, and she was so clear about what she wanted to happen. Usually I have to know everything about everything, but I didn't have to know anything about Abdou."

Three months later Pierson bought N'Dir a plane ticket, and he flew 6,000 miles to join the Robinson dance school as a scholarship student. It was not an easy transition for him, but Robinson set about making her school into his new village. Dance was the language he could speak and that his new friends could all understand.

Robinson admits a few false starts. "I hug everybody," she said, "so I hugged him. Well, in Senegal, there are clear roles for people. Adult women do not hug boys unless they're related to them. Then I tried to give him dance solos right away, to bring him out, because he was unusually shy. It turns out that in Senegal, you don't dance in the middle unless you're in your own village. A couple of drummers who had lived in Senegal told me I was embarrassing him. I had some things to learn!"

N'Dir soon made friends at school; before long, he ventured into the circle to dance. When Robinson's company presented its annual holiday program, N'Dir dazzled audiences by joining Robinson for the finale.

"The entire audience was like a sponge wanting to soak him in," said Roslyn Dove, his principal teacher at the school. "He was very energetic, willing to try anything. And that smile! It was the biggest part of him."

Now he is 20, a strong young man who favors baggy jeans and plaid shirts. He is a scholarship student at Colorado College and talks about becoming an accountant. N'Dir is one of few freshmen on his school's soccer team and his coach, Horst Richardson, calls him "a phenomenon."

"He floats across the field," said Richardson. "He is a most graceful and creative player with perplexing moves that throw the other team off. My first impression was he was meek and withdrawn, but there was always this smile. He was just waiting for his chance."

These days N'Dir's dancing may be seen on the soccer field following a goal. It is a Senegalese tradition to dance instead of cheer, one television audiences might remember from the ecstatic goal celebration as Senegal triumphed over France in the 2002 World Cup. Dance is a clear expression of joy and strength that is understandable in any language, in any country if only given a chance.

Katherine Miller writes for numerous magazines and Web sites about Africa and people who cross cultural boundaries.