Miss-Delectable
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 17,160
- Reaction score
- 7
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=24334
BEIRUT: Nadira Samaha, 25, has been dancing for 10 years, performing at international festivals in Canada, Germany and Egypt, as well as in her home country, Lebanon. If you didn't read the program, you'd never know she was deaf. "I cannot speak very well, but when I dance I can express my feelings through my body," said Samaha, one of 10 dancers in L'Ecoute, a dance troupe for the deaf.
"People are surprised to see us dance because we cannot hear the music, but we feel it through the vibrations in the floor and we memorize the count," Samaha said. "It takes a lot of rehearsing but after time we memorize all the steps."
Joumana Haddad, 27, also a member of L'Ecoute, explained: "There is a lot of concentration involved; I always tell people to be silent and not to make noise because the deaf need to feel the details of the music."
L'Ecoute dance troupe was founded 10 years ago by Father Jean Marie Chami and has since evolved into a comprehensive non-profit organization that offers vocational training, activities in the arts and transportation for people living with a variety of disabilities.
But Chami doesn't fit the role of benevolent priest ministering charity to the helpless disabled. His soft-spoken demeanor belies the intense pragmatism of someone who's already lived two full lives as an architect and a dancer before reincarnating himself as 'Chaplin of the Deaf.'
"I felt it since I was small, but I was afraid to say 'yes' so I followed the regular path and became an architect," he said. "But even as an architect I was always putting away part of my profits for this, and through the deaf I rediscovered my true vocation."
BEIRUT: Nadira Samaha, 25, has been dancing for 10 years, performing at international festivals in Canada, Germany and Egypt, as well as in her home country, Lebanon. If you didn't read the program, you'd never know she was deaf. "I cannot speak very well, but when I dance I can express my feelings through my body," said Samaha, one of 10 dancers in L'Ecoute, a dance troupe for the deaf.
"People are surprised to see us dance because we cannot hear the music, but we feel it through the vibrations in the floor and we memorize the count," Samaha said. "It takes a lot of rehearsing but after time we memorize all the steps."
Joumana Haddad, 27, also a member of L'Ecoute, explained: "There is a lot of concentration involved; I always tell people to be silent and not to make noise because the deaf need to feel the details of the music."
L'Ecoute dance troupe was founded 10 years ago by Father Jean Marie Chami and has since evolved into a comprehensive non-profit organization that offers vocational training, activities in the arts and transportation for people living with a variety of disabilities.
But Chami doesn't fit the role of benevolent priest ministering charity to the helpless disabled. His soft-spoken demeanor belies the intense pragmatism of someone who's already lived two full lives as an architect and a dancer before reincarnating himself as 'Chaplin of the Deaf.'
"I felt it since I was small, but I was afraid to say 'yes' so I followed the regular path and became an architect," he said. "But even as an architect I was always putting away part of my profits for this, and through the deaf I rediscovered my true vocation."