Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | D | Dance Magazine

To their own music: dancers who are deaf--and defying the odds.

Article Excerpt
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The word "def," taken from the word, "definitive," is hip hop slang for great. Add an "a," however, and that word--leaf--becomes something altogether different. Especially for a dancer.

A profound hearing loss affects not only balance and equilibrium, but also the ability to hear the outside world. With a big part of a dancer's world being music, the situation would seem insurmountable, requiring ingenious solutions when hearing aids are not enough.

And while there are few cases of deaf musicians--the composer Beethoven notwithstanding--there are a number of professional dancers who, to varying degrees, are deaf. In exploring the deaf dancer's milieu, Dance Magazine spoke to seven in the field. They provide hope for the hearing impaired seeking careers in dance, an already crowded arena.

For Jacob "Kujo" Lyons, artistic director of the Los Angeles-based Lux Aeterna, a troupe that fuses breaking with contemporary dance, his impairment has not prevented him from doing what he loves. Born deaf in his right ear, with an ear infection at 4 causing him to lose hall the hearing in the other, Lyons wears a hearing aid. "I can see rhythm better than I can hear it," says Lyons. "At hip hop competitions I see the pace at which the audience claps their hands and bobs their heads. I...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!