Hello Bill

This is from a friend who has more experience with this than I

I'll leave this to you to forward to the list.

From: bill fischer via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net>
does anyone have experience with hearing impaired calling?

I've taught English Ceilidh to a deaf group in the UK, and frequently call in environments with some hearing-impaired dancers.

has anyone used signing for dances?
or other solutions to make the dance accessible?

Signing helps when you're reasonably close to the dancers, but isn't ideal in a large room.  For the group, I had a number of hearing folks who spread themselves through the sets, could sign, and were able to act as interpreters during the walk-throughs.  However, they were also dancing, and it's difficult (a) to sign and dance and (b) to look at the person signing when you're also dancing.  So here are a few tips:
  • Bring bass bins or tip a speaker to point towards the floor if calling for a deaf group.  The organiser's suggestion - it gives a beat that can be felt - and very effective at keeping time.
  • Beg, borrow, steal, or buy a headset radio mic.  You'll need both hands free for my next point; the hearing folks will need you amplified; it keeps your face visible for the lip-readers; and you have a reasonable chance of getting a feed into the room's T-loop system if there's one installed.
  • Use full-body movements to show or mime the moves you want.  I'll hold out a crooked right/left arm for turns, hold an arm diagonally up for stars, hold arms as if I'm walking in a circle for circles, hold out hands to mime a cross-hand swing.  As ever, show these before the move happens, just as you'd start to call a move so that the call completes as the move starts.
  • If you have one or two hearing-impaired people, try to stay in line of sight of them, especially at the start of a move so that they can glance away as little as possible from where they are to get the next move.  If you have a group, try to stay on the stage so that you're in a known position for them.
  • If you have signers, get into a huddle beforehand and agree shorthand signs for the different moves.  You tell them what moves you'll be doing through the session, they devise the signs and communicate to the group the first time the move comes up.
  • Think about your move vocabulary.  It takes longer to teach each new move, simply because of the overhead of looking, signing, and associating the sign with the move.  Introduce new moves with consideration for the learning curve.
  • Remember normal hygiene for dealing with folks who may be partially or totally lip-reading: nothing in front of your face (including stand or handheld radio mics); face the audience.
  • Try not to mumble; and try not to SHOUT the occAsional SYLlable because it plays havoc with compressors in T-loops and hearing aids such that your audience may be unable to discern the syllable after the shouted one.
Cheers,

- Peter



On 19 June 2018 at 15:13, bill fischer via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
good day!

thanks for providing this outlet for us!

does anyone have experience with hearing impaired calling?
has anyone used signing for dances?
or other solutions to make the dance accessible?

grateful for your thoughts
billy fischer
312 litchfield turnpike
bethany ct 06524
203-393-3464 land
203-314-0221 cell/text




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