Former Hollyoaks star, Rachel Shenton, is helping the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) encourage young deaf dancers and musicians to showcase their performance skills and enter Raising the Bar, a new music and dance competition which launches today.
Raising the Bar was developed by NDCS to make dance and music more accessible for the 45,000 deaf children and young people in the UK. It aims to increase the levels of deaf awareness through the arts, whilst also raising the expectations and standards of what deaf children and young people believe they can achieve.
Entrants to the competition (eight to 16-year-olds) will have six weeks from today until 22 February 2015, to create and submit a video of themselves performing a dance or music routine. Ten lucky winners will be selected by NDCS staff and leading deaf professionals from the arts industry, and invited to attend a two-day masterclass on 24 -25 May 2015.
Masterclass training sessions will be led by ‘Def Motion’, the UK’s only touring deaf dance crew, the acclaimed deaf flutist Ruth Montgomery, and Danny Lane from ‘Music and the Deaf’, a unique charity working to ensure everyone has the opportunity to enjoy music.
The weekend will culminate in a live showcase of the newly found Raising the Bar stars, at The Rep Theatre in Birmingham, demonstrating exactly what deaf children and young people can achieve.
Rachel Shenton said: “It’s really fantastic that deaf children and young people can showcase their skills in dance and music through the NDCS ‘Raising the Bar’ competition.
“Interacting with other deaf young people through performance and music is vital for aspiring deaf performers in order to build their self-confidence and demonstrate to others, what’s possible for deaf children to achieve in dance and music.
“Raising awareness across the arts industry, making dance and music accessible for everyone is so important and I wholeheartedly encourage all the budding deaf musicians and dancers out there to get involved, sign up and be part of it!”
To see Rachel Shenton’s video click here.
Hayley Jarvis, Head of Inclusive Activities for NDCS said: “Deaf children can do anything other children can do, given the right support. Participation in the arts gives deaf children and young people the chance to learn new skills, and feel more confident and empowered – and participation is what Raising the Bar is all about!
“We will also be developing a ‘toolkit’ for teachers to raise the awareness and expectations of deaf dance and music professionals. We hope this will inspire professionals across the arts to deliver accessible activities for deaf children and young people.”
To sign up to the competition please visit: www.buzz.org.uk/raisingthebar
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Cathy
January 13, 2015
Just wondering what the “toolkit” is exactly? I have enjoyed music in the past and learnt to play a recorder at school. However as an adult there has been no opportunity to carry on playing and it would be much harder having tinnitus too.
It is great to make music more accessible although am wondering how? As I wear hearing aids music IS accessible, but without them it is NOT. And vibrations do not give access to music.
I hope hearing teachers do not get the impression that music can be made accessible to all deaf children and adults, as music is obviously sound based and sounds are only accessible through hearing aids and cochlear implants.
As many deaf children now have cochlear implants this would be the primary reason for gaining access to music, so it would be interesting to know if this “toolkit” aids children who are profoundly deaf with no aid at all or those with aids and implants and what it actually does?
I know a deaf child who cannot make use of either aids or implants due to missing parts of the inner ear. She has no concept of music, would the “toolkit” aid her???
Hartmut
January 13, 2015
I rather see more dramatic presentations than musical and dance ones. Theater and Film are more meaningful and entertaining. Music are for ears only. Both music and sometimes dance are incomprehensible for deaf eyes.
Deaf Theatre and Sign Language Films need a lot more support, both finances and manpower, which have been lacking generally. Why must one be obsessed with music? Such an audism!!
Hartmut
January 13, 2015
Before one goes about bringing music to deafies, one needs to contemplate what music is and what components are primarily involved in music. To my limited knowledge of music, being deaf myself, i envision music to be made of two most basic components: melody and rhythm. I know rhythm is accessible to deaf people. It is just a matter of beats of varied intensity and their timed occurrence, which can be translated into bodily movements. These rhythmic body movements (mostly legs) are what give deaf participants good feelings.
Melody in terms of interplay of multitudinous simultaneous sounds in harmony is useless to deafies, in my opinion. A hearing aid or much less a cochlear implant does not transmit the melody completely and faithfully. A cochlear implant transmits only up to 22 frequencies, an extremely fraction of the sound spectrum of 20,000 frequencies.
Many deaf persons are led erroneously due to indoctrination by music teachers to believing, they are getting music, but in fact, they get only the rhythm portion of music. You can do rhythm without any tonal music.
Cathy
January 15, 2015
Hartmut, I agree with you, music is on the whole useless to deaf people! Its like trying to make all the colours we have, accessible to the blind!!!
Rythm is easy and one can use counting to get the rythm, but melody is a completely different ball game and like you say a cochlear implant cannot begin to compete with natural hearing, encompossing so many thousand frequencies! This is why I was asking about the “toolkit” how exactly does it aid deaf children in music, if at all??? Nobody, so far, has explained…………….
Runaway Train
January 15, 2015
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/nov/19/feel-music-deaf-children-orchestra may be of interest.
I can’t answer the question because I don’t have enough knowledge or experience, but I think it is a somewhat narrow view to think that ‘music’ only counts if it’s a regular song or orchestral piece, and that one can only access it by hearing it. Don’t forget, sounds ARE vibrations; sure, one can only know what a major chord sounds like by hearing it, but one can still APPRECIATE music without hearing it. (This may well not be what the competition is about, but I’m addressing the comments rather than the article.) I terms of conventional music, playing an instrument is an incredibly physical process, just as attending a concert should be. It can also be visually beautiful if the performers are united in their musical/artistic interpretation. (Basically, if the orchestra bow and breathe together, or the band / act want to get the same meaning across, etc.) Then there are various unconventional forms of music and ways of experiencing it that mean there is a rich musical landscape for deaf people to access.