It may come as a surprise to the hearing community that young profoundly deaf or children with a hearing loss, might be just as crazy about dance as hearing children. Why is that?

Here is the story of just such a child who was born in Lismore, New South Wales in Australia. Her hearing parents were completely ignorant of the deaf culture. Before Anna was born with profound hearing loss, they didn’t know any deaf people. They had to fit in with a new culture and learn the sign language, Auslan — a whole new language with plenty of rhythm, but without sounds.

Here’s a quote by Anna from the video below.

I knew that I loved to dance and loved dance from a very young age, but as a deaf person, I didn’t think or realise that it was possible to become a professional dancer. There were no role models out there that I could look up to.

While watching the Bangarra Dance Theatre, she felt such a visceral response that she knew she would have to pursue a dance career to become a bridge between the seemingly separate worlds of the dance community and the deaf community.

I was inspired by watching her story on the video brought to us by the Deakin University Alumni Awards. Anna Seymour  reminds me of the young Dame Evelyn Glennie, famous deaf percussionist. It’s getting clearer to me that the deaf community have a lot to teach us music  practitioners about expressive movement. Please watch and see if you feel similarly inspired.