From the newsroom of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, Wednesday, March 12, 2008 .....
Heather Wagley practices with dance partner Larry Nemeth at the American Dance Exchange. When they compete, the judges are unaware that she is deaf.
When I found out about Marlee Maltin's dancing job on TV a month ago, I was excited and happy to learn about her situation there. Yay! I am planned to watch "Dancing with the Stars" on Monday night, ABC. Remember Heather Whitestone, Miss America 1995? She was the first deaf ballerina to win Miss America but the kind of her dance is different. I will never forget the night she won. Regis Philbin was witnessed there. His reaction about Heather Whitestone is that he can't believe it as his head shaked. Heather is so amazing! Anyways, I am going to find out how Marlee is doing. Otherwise, here is an article online about a deaf dancer and her dance partner below. I picked this out last Wednesday night cuz I thought u might be interesting to learn about what deaf dancer can do that u don't know.Heather Wagley was putting her best foot forward on a recent afternoon, but her instructor Larry Nemeth wanted a better best foot forward, and then another.
So Nemeth, who teaches at the American Dance Exchange in Highland Heights, led Wagley to repeat a sequence of steps here, a sequence there, allowing the music to pace them through a medley of dances, from West Coast jitterbug to fox trot to tango to cha-cha -- as other students and instructors danced around them.
Wagley, a tall, blond woman of 32, has won first place in more than 50 ballroom dancing contests, with Nemeth as her partner the last eight years or so. When the San Francisco Open DanceSport competition begins March 28, they'll be there in their dancing shoes.
The judges won't know she's deaf. They never do.
ABC Actress Marlee Matlin practices with her partner in preparation for Monday's sixth season-premiere of "Dancing With the Stars" on ABC.
Of course, when ABC's popular reality show "Dancing With the Stars" begins its sixth season at 8 p.m. Monday, the judges will know contestant Marlee Matlin is deaf.
And so will everyone who watches the Oscar-winning actress and wonders, "How can she dance to music she can't hear?"
Wagley, a dance student for 18 years, was pleasantly surprised that Matlin was chosen for the TV competition -- and of course, she'll be watching, as usual. Communicating through sign language to instructor Tony Nunez, she predicted Matlin has her work cut out for her, though.
Matlin is hoping her appearance will shatter once and for all the misconception that deaf people can't dance. "Deaf people can do anything except hear," she said in USA Today, quoting I. King Jordan, the first deaf president of Gallaudet University, a school in Washington, D.C., for the deaf and hard of hearing.
The actress will learn the dances through sight, feel and repetition, just like Wagley, said P.J. Novarro, co-owner of the dance studio. He said the film star will have to practice at least 40 hours to learn a dance, and that's more or less true for the other participants, too.
"Everyone is born with rhythm," he said. "She may not hear the downbeat, but it's transferred to her by her teacher."
While the bass notes can be felt through wooden flooring, they are not transmitted effectively through other materials, like concrete, or wood on concrete. That's why a deaf dancer needs to count steps, or look to a partner for guidance, as Wagley does. She focuses on Nemeth's face all the while she's dancing, he said, because she reads his lips for instructions, like "quick" or "slow" to keep the rhythm.
"And I'll tell her if she leans too heavily," he said, and that would indicate she isn't maintaining proper posture, which was a problem early on. "I keep telling her to take smaller steps. And a big challenge for her is moving her hips for the Latin dancing."
And she must remember step counts. The merengue, for example, is danced on eight counts, equally timed; the rumba is quick-quick-slow; the cha-cha is cha-cha-cha, rock step, and the mambo is 1 -- hold -- 2-3-4.
Sue Bungard, director of community services at the Cleveland Hearing and Speech Center, knows the drill. She is deaf and attended Gallaudet, where students held homecoming dances. "The band would play loud, and we'd have a wonderful time," she said. And they'd keep the music cranked up in the student lounge, too.
But college wasn't her first introduction to dance. "I took tap and ballet as a child, and I took line dancing," she said. "I just followed along."
Don't forget to watch "Dancing with the Stars" on Monday night at 8 pm Eastern Time on ABC. Here is a link of this show below:
Dancing with the Stars
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