Def Meets Deaf Poetry Jam (9th year)

This is the 9th year of the poetry event titled Def Meets Deaf Poetry Jam taking place at Lovin' Cup in Rochester, NY (Henrietta area near RIT/NTID campus). John Roche, former Liberal Arts faculty at Rochester Institute of Technology, and myself will lead this event. John is responsible for recruiting the hearing poets/performers and I'm responsible for recruiting the deaf/hard of hearing poets/performers. This event shows the two worlds performing along each other: the hearing culture and the deaf culture. English spoken words would be spoken by the hearing people and American Sign Language (ASL) would be used by deaf/hard of hearing people on the stage. Those performers will take turns to do their readings or skits. This unique event has been going on for 9 years. This show gets jammed with a big crowd as popular. Two interpreters will help along to translate the hearing performers' English poems into ASL and the deaf/hard of hearing performers' ASL into English - making this become total accessible for everyone. The 2 interpreters will be Cindy Gilchrist and Denise Herrera. 

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Besides being the MC, I and John will do the performances. The deaf/hard of hearing performers are Matt Schwarz and his high school students RH Sign Language Chorus, Vicki Nordquist, Eric Epstein, and Dangerous Signs. The hearing performers will be Grace Flores, Miriam Lerner, Bart White, Michael Czarnecki, Nick Eckerson, Collen Powderly, and Mental Graffitti.

As Orin in Little Shop of Horrors

I am currently rehearsing as Orin, the bad dentist, in Little Shop of Horrors. The production is directed by Luane Davis Haggerty. I will act in this production at MuCCC (Multi-use Community Cultural Center) downtown Rochester, NY from April 26th to April 29th. I will use ASL (American Sign Language) while acting as Orin in this production. I am excited to act like a mean boyfriend to Audrey, hurting people's teeth, getting high with the gas, and dying - all in ridiculous and funny ways. After the performance at MuCCC, the production will go to Rochester's Geva Theatre in the summer either in June or July. 

"I'm your dentist and a success. Say ah. Say ah. Say ah. Now spit."

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Two Self-Portraits

Created two new self-portraits digital photos. One is "Eddie and Bayou" and the other is "Polar Bear". 

For "Eddie and Bayou", I took a shot of my cat Bayou with iPhone. I then took a selfie with iPhone. After that, I  used a new free app called Photofox. It is an app that enables to blend in one picture into another picture. Henceforth, I blended my face and Bayou's face together. It was a challenge. It was difficult to make it match with the size, alignment, and color. I erased the right side of my face and erased the left side of my cat's face. Once put together, I transferred the work into PhotoEditor. I then played around the special effects that were available in PhotoEditor. I solved the problem by creating a special color filter, which made the work become yellowish/bluish/orangish. This helped make the work become more interesting. 

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For "Polar Bear", I took a selfie, wearing a white animal winter hat and a blue tooth necklace without a shirt. I then used PicsArt app to add the cracks around me, the glowing effects off my face and hat, and used Vintage effect a little in corners of the photo. I then played around the effects and when I used Solarize, it changed the picture into wild color effects, which surprised me. The Solarized picture made it more dramatic. So, I kept it that way without adding more effects. Therefore I ended up keeping two of the work. One with the cracks, glows, and vintage effects, and the other with the solarize effect. 

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