ASL Poetry Show at Equal Grounds

On November 8th, Dangerous Signs (ASL poetry, songs, mime, and acting performance group), Eric Epstein (ASL poet), and myself as DJ WildPoet all performed at Equal Grounds. There was a fundraising effort toward Discovering Deaf Worlds (DDW), which two DDW board members showed up to explain what DDW do and collected the donations from the audience. 

Here are photos for you to see. You can click on them in order to see them bigger.

DJ WildPoet 

DJ WildPoet

Eric Epstein

Dangerous Signs

Here is a YouTube link of my DJ-ASL performances for you to watch below (though the vid isn't in a good high quality unfortunately). Click right on it to see my performance of "Rebellion" (my work) and Bjork's "Pluto" song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOYxX0DaDho

Dangerous Signs did several great skits such as "Superstitious" by Stevie Wonder, "Man in the Mirror" by Michael Jackson, several poems by Langston Hughes, and few more. Eric Epstein did several of his original beautifully done ASL poems. I as DJ WildPoet played three original electronic music through Numark Pro 2 DJ device. When words come up during the DJ-ing, I translated them into ASL. The very last was Bjork's "Pluto" song, the only work that wasn't my own piece. I manipulated her music on my DJ and when she sang the words, I translated the lyric into ASL. Two great voicers helped the audience understand the ASL language that the performers were using. They were Cindy Gilchrist and Luane Davis Haggerty. I shall thank these two women. I shall thank John White and Randy Torgerson for giving me the opportunity to use their stage at Equal Grounds. 

Hamlet's Ghost Father and DJ at MuCCC "Zombie Shakespeare"

On October 31st and November 1st, I acted as Hamlet's ghost father, translated into ASL (American Sign Language), along a person who spoke the script. I painted my face white and smeared black around my eyes plus a real beaver fur tall hat from my great uncle (real and not joking) and a black suede suit. The work with James Landers (voicer) was great and we did very well on stage together.

I also was a DJ as DJ WildPoet there during the time when audiences came in (warm-up) and after the performances ended (closing-hour). The DJ-ing was a nervous thing for me, because I have never done this to only hearing people. The very first DJ I did was at NTID (National Technical Institute for the Deaf), where predomiantly deaf and heard of hearing were the audience and, yes, there were hearing people there as well. Yet, NTID was just a little bit of save haven for me as a new DJ performer. Now, at MuCCC, only people outside of NTID and not familiar with deaf culture or anything were there. I was indeed surprised that many appraised my DJ work. One hearing cast member in the production happily proclaimed my name "DJ WildPoet!!" and gave me a two hands high-five. Other cast members gave me their thumbs up when I stopped DJ-ing to get ready to perform as Hamlet's ghost father. So, I realize it did work well more than I expected. I video-taped myself doing the DJ-ing there and that one video got 105 people who saw it on my DJ WildPoet Facebook page.

Here are a photo of my DJ Numark Pro 2, laptop, and my great uncle's beaver hat.

Here are 2 photos of me as Hamlet's ghost father.