A Case Study on Signed Music: The Emergence of an
Inter-performance Art

Jody H. Cripps, Ely Rosenblum, Anita Small, & Samuel J. Supalla



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the case study videos discussed in the essay are below




I. Eyes (by Janis E. Cripps)


video used with permission
[runtime: 3:17]





II. Experimental Clip (by Pamela Elizabeth Witcher)


video used with permission
[runtime: 3:23]







Jody H. Cripps is an Associate Professor of Deaf Studies at Towson University. His area of expertise includes Universal Design, social responsibility, applied linguistics, literacy, and signed music. Ely Rosenblum is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Music at the University of Cambridge (UK). He is an ethnographic researcher of art, music and performance, and is also a filmmaker and a sound recordist. Anita Small, is the founder of small LANGUAGE CONNECTIONS consulting, where she creates award winning language, culture and communications content for organizations and educational institutions. Samuel J. Supalla is an Associate Professor in Disability and Psychoeducational Studies at the University of Arizona. His research focuses on reading and English development with deaf children. The Signed Music Project began in 2012 under the collaborative leadership of Cripps, Rosenblum, and Small. It explores signed music as a form of performance art that arises from within the deaf community and is distinct and evolved from both ASL poetry and from translated signed songs which initiated from spoken language. It may incorporate ASL literary poetic features such as lines, meter, rhythm and rhyme while also incorporating basic elements of music like harmony, rhythm, melody, timbre, and texture, which are expressed as a visual-gestural artistic form.

» visit the signed music project website

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