News & Events
Pitopito kōrero
Deaf Culture and Arts
25 Sep 2021
Sign Singing for Attitude Awards
Backstory
What: Sign Singing
For: Attitude Awards
Initiative: Thora Huebner, Deaf Culture and Teaching Lead, who was assigned this from Deaf Aotearoa NZ
The Attitude Awards were looking for Deaf sign-singers for their end of year Attitude Awards. Two students have been selected from Tu Kokiri (post high school program), Ko Taku Reo School/Deaf Education NZ.
Before lockdown
Our fabulous two Deaf students (Anuiska Singh and Rahui Lee) from Tu Kokiri will be doing a sign-song for the Attitude Awards. We have been doing practice sessions and we do this at least twice a week. We have made progress as we have been given a song that we have put into Sign.
In lockdown
I decided to be inventive by requesting the interpreter, Reb Guy, to take the host on Zoom and bring up the captioned lyrics video. Our interpreter puts the cursor on each captioned line, guiding our students as they sign. So far, this method seems to be working well for our sign-singing rehearsals. Just because we are in Lock-Down does not mean that our Sign Singing comes to a halt!
Interviewing our stars
I have interviewed our stars asking two questions about their experiences of NZSL sign singing (what they know about Sign-Singing or if they have been involved in some way before) and how they felt about being selected for the Attitude Awards Sign Signing which will be held at the end of this year.