Theatre troupe brings first deaf musical to Indonesian stage | ABS-CBN News

In a Jakarta theatre, the music pulsed from speakers as a group of young artists danced in a musical, bathed in multicolour stage lights. But no one was singing. Theatre troupe Fantasi Tuli (Deaf Fantasy) was performing Indonesia's first musical with mostly deaf artists and crew, using screens around the stage showing dialogue and song lyrics as actors performed with their expression and hand signs. Titled "Senandung Senyap" (Songs of Silence), the musical tells the plight of students in a middle school for children with disabilities, created by directors Hasna Mufidah and Helga Theresia to raise awareness and break the stigma against sign language "My hope is going forward inclusivity can be strengthened, that between deaf and hearing people, hearing is not superior, we're equal," Mufidah, who herself is deaf, said through Indonesian sign language. Involving more than 60 deaf actors and crew, the musical took three months to prepare and is inspired by Deaf West Theatre in the United States, co-director Helga said. The performance examines special-needs education in Indonesian schools, where deaf students are often taught with an emphasis on speech training and lip-reading, more than on sign language, amid a wider debate about the best education methods for children with hearing disability. This rings true for Hanna Aretha Oktavia, a deaf performer in the musical who said the play was also her first introduction to sign language and the wider deaf community. "Throughout dialogue rehearsals we had to use as much expressions as possible and to follow the storyline," Hanna said. "What's interesting is in rehearsals we have to feel the tempo and vibrations and match them with the choreography. I think that's the most intriguing part because I love to dance and we paid close attention to the beats with the aid of hearing aids. We use big speakers to help guide us," she said. More than 2 million of Indonesia's 280 million people have a hearing disability, including 27,983 students in special-needs schools. - Report from Reuters For more ABS-CBN News, click the link below: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgyY1WylJUmgG2ln-vtKXb-oLlGEZc3sR To watch the latest updates on COVID-19, click the link below: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgyY1WylJUmgUjPkc730KnTVICyQU6gBf Subscribe to the ABS-CBN News channel! - http://bit.ly/TheABSCBNNews Watch the full episodes of TV Patrol on iWantTFC: http://bit.ly/TVPatrol-iWantTFC Visit our website at http://news.abs-cbn.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abscbnNEWS Twitter: https://twitter.com/abscbnnews #Exclusive #LatestNews #ABSCBNNews