Deaf Arts & Artists
Deaf Arts are frequently unique in that many Deaf individuals choose reveal and express their Deafness and the Deaf culture through their work.
Deaf artists use a variety of media and methods to express themselves. Contemporary artists can be found using clay sculpture (such as Don Baer of San Francisco who creates life sized wax figures of notable Deaf identities), dance (such as Aysphixa of Melbourne who performed at Deaf Way II) and Robert Farmer, sign poet who also performed at Deaf Way II, painting (Ron Wild, of Sydney who was commissioned to paint murals around Sydney).
In Melbourne, an organisation Deaf Arts Network (DAN) has been established.
In the USA, there is also another organisation that is dedicated to professional Deaf artists.
From Asia, a professional Deaf film-making group, Mata TV, produces and screens feature like Deaf films around Asia, the United States and more recently to Brisbane and Sydney, Australia. Check them out on [1]
(http://www.mata.tv)
Each year, just after Christmas, many Deaf people attend the now famous week long folk festival, Woodford Festival, in Woodford, Queensland. Deaf people have performed sign signing, dance and poetry there.
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[Edit]1 Story Telling
Story Telling is a highly valued art form in most Deaf communities. The ability to turn a simple event into a dramatic story filled with expression and signed puns is quite refined, and only a very few of the Deaf community will be considered very *Deaf* in their storytelling.
[Edit]1.1 ABC Stories
One of the most recognisable forms of Story Telling is the "ABC Story", where the signed letters of one's alphabet are incorporating in a theatrical manner into a story. An excellent ABC Story will not use too many "filler" signs in the script, will use every letter in a clear yet subtle manner, and will tell a coherent and believable story.
[Watch videos of ABC Stories.]
