Deaf Performance I was born with the ability to hear very well in both of my ears. I am able to hear everything. Most people are. Some people lose their hearing as they age, but they do not go deaf. Other people are born without the ability to hear or they get a bad sickness when they are young and they lose their ability to hear. It is a difficult disability to have to live with. I cannot imagine what it would be like to have to be living in a world where I could not hear things like music, where I could not hear people who are talking to me, where I could not hear birds chirping or dogs barking or others sounds in nature. Yet, the woman shown in this lecture is deaf. She cannot hear and she cannot speak so she must communicate with her hands and her face, particularly with her eyes. There is a whole new language which she has access to that I do not understand. I have never before seen anyone speaking American Sign Language in person. Although I have seen it in movies and on television, that is very different from watching someone do it in front of me. I watch her and I cannot interpret what it is she is signing to me. This makes me feel that I sort of understand exactly what it is that she goes through every day when she is around hearing people. She sees people talking around her. If she can read lips, then she can understand them, but even then that is only if she can clearly see their lips and if they speak slowly. The rest of the world of sound is cut off to her. In the same way, the signs she makes are cut off to me. I also found it very interesting to hear the interpreter explain what it was that she was signing because he did not have much expression at all. Instead, he was just saying what she was signing. The actual emotion behind the words all came from watching her, not hearing him.

During the lecture, this person signed the poem "The Giving Tree." It is a beautiful poem that touched me very much. There is a little boy who loves a tree very much and the tree loves him too. When the boy gets a little older, he does not want to do those things with the tree anymore. Instead he only cares...

He takes all those apples and leaves the tree for a long time, but the tree is still happy because he could do something for the boy. Then the boy comes back only to ask for a house. Even later in his life, the boy comes back and the tree gives up his trunk so that the boy can build a boat. Finally, the boy returns to the tree and he is a very old man. The tree is nothing more than a stump at this point, but that is all the boy needs because he wants to sit down and rest. The tree is finally happy because, even though he is only a stump, he finally has the boy back and he is not alone.
In her motions, the performer shows that the tree is caring by showing a happy face. She shows the warmth and the love that the tree has for the little boy just by the smile she has and the warmth in her eyes. Also, she shows the way that the boy is cruel and wrong by using her face and her expressions. He is a bad person and she show how the two characters are different by taking on their characteristics in her performance. When signing the part of the poem where the boy requests things from the tree, she makes an uglier face than she does when the tree is responding to his demands. That is because she wants to show that she also thinks the boy is mean and very selfish. Throughout her performance, the speaker uses her facial features and her body language to help people understand what it is that she is signing. Even the people who do not know sign language could understand what she is signing when she makes the motion for tree or boy or apple. This is because she uses the American Sign Language signs for the words, but also because she emphasizes the parts of the poem with her face. When she makes the motions for climb, you can envision the little boy and how he would climb the tree. When she signs that he eats the apples, you can see him taking a bite and might even smell the apple. Everything about the story, including the events, but also the truth of the message of love behind the poem is shown in the way the woman signs.

At first, I…