Concerts accessible to the deaf

The deaf and hard of hearing also have the right to enjoy the concerts and especially to understand the lyrics. However, among the different types of interpretation to the French or English or American or Spanish sign language ... that we are led to perform, one of the most delicate is precisely the interpretation of songs during concerts (personally I do not I'm not at risk yet). Here is Vibe Music Events, they are dedicated to Concerts for the Deaf.

Recently, we even learned that Lady Gaga was taking sign language classes with a particular teacher. She was inspired by videos on Youtube in which deaf fans of the singer took back her songs in sign language.

More seriously (though ...) a year ago, the Netherlands hosted the first edition of "Deaf Metal" , a fully organized metal concert for the deaf. The bass power of the battery was transmitted via a vibrating floor. As Marie-Florence Devalet, communications officer at the French-speaking Federation of the Deaf in Belgium, remarked: "Music is a sound wave that vibrates the material around it. All that is baffling, wooden floor, soundbox, loud music helps the deaf to perceive music through vibrations. So rock goes better than classical music. And we imagine that with hard rock or metal is even more effective.

But vibrations are not the only vectors of sound. Indeed, the sign languages ​​themselves have a visual rhythm; it is thus quite possible to sign in rhythm with the music. Marie-Florence Devalet confirms: "The deaf person will see the rhythm, the melody of the music from the signs and expressions of the body and the face of the one who translates the sound".

During the concert held in Holland, seven performers took turns on stage for this delicate exercise.

Quieter this year, at our Belgian neighbors, four concerts (like Christophe Maé's) were translated into sign language during the Francofolies de Spa . When you know that a song alone represents between 5 and 7 hours of preparation, you realize the importance of the work done by my colleagues.

Once on stage, after having divided the songs and having worked them for a long time, sometimes in collaboration with the artists, the interpreters follow one another in turn. The major difficulty is that you have to start and finish at the same time as the singer, without any delay. To translate, we must privilege the meaning, the beauty of the signs; it is not at all literal and the expression of the body, of the face is primordial.

The examples are also numerous, especially during rap or slam concerts, the rhythmic of the songs, the topics discussed lending themselves well to sign language.

Sensory devices such as somatosensory receptors will be put in place distributed to the public to feel the vibrations in their hands, two plexiglass chimneys 2.5 m high placed in the same room, an interactive video and a luminous battery created specifically for the show!