Deaf Dancer – An Interview With Ballerina Simone Botha Welgemoed
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April 16, 2018

Deaf Dancer – An Interview With Ballerina Simone Botha Welgemoed

I got to sit down with Simone Botha Welgemoed, a Cape Town based professional ballet dancer. She’s not just that, she’s also deaf. Listen below to hear what it’s like to be a deaf dancer. She’s such an inspiration!

“It’s not that I can’t hear the music playing, I can hear the music playing, but it’s the finer details in the music like the nuances and when to start counting. So if there’s a beat then I can hear there’s a very nice beat to it, but I wouldn’t exactly know when to start counting five, six, seven, eight. So for that I always need someone, a teacher or a dancing partner or friend to assist me. So if I do a solo then I always have someone hiding in the corner behind the curtain showing me, okay, that’s when you have to start, or when I’m dancing in a group situation and I’m right in front, my eyes are working very hard. So I can basically say that my eyes are my ears, and the dancers that I dance with are very supportive of me and know that I can’t hear the music so they’ve got to be in time with the music so I can be in time with the music!

And when it comes to pas de deux work, then my partner is in total control of the music, so I completely rely on him. So of course, you know, as you rehearse a piece over and over and over, you get a sense of the rhythm. But the dance is going to be set at, but sometimes you dance with an orchestra, and they play a little faster or a bit slower, and then somebody like me, alone, would be a bit screwed, not knowing whether I should be picking up or not. So that’s what I have my dance partner for. He’ll touch me to start, or it might be a look in the eye, or…it’s just, I’m very sensitive to these movements to know, okay, I can feel we’re moving a bit faster or slower. So that’s how I try and cope with being hearing impaired and trying to find other ways to cope without being able to hear the music.”

Thanks so much Simone! Your work is amazing!

April 16, 2018

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