DESCRIPTION:
All rights reserved to the original artist of the song (Beyonce Knowles)

Filmed and directed by Marisa Mills and Lauren Hostovsky
Edited by Lauren Hostovsky
Proudly sponsored by Reminiscence Productions LLC

I have always loved music, but it wasn't until I started deejaying for Reminiscence Productions in Washington, D.C., that I realized I could actually express myself through music by creating music mixes and also by translating the words into American Sign Language (ASL) for Deaf and hard of hearing people to enjoy too. I am hard of hearing myself, but I am culturally Deaf, meaning that ASL is my first language--the language I grew up with. You could say that I have the music in me and I have the ASL in me too. So with the help of Kojo Amissah and Marisa Mills, I challenged myself to create some high quality ASL music videos that Deaf and hard of hearing audiences could really get into, not only by hearing/feeling the beat and vibrations of the music, but also by having access to the message of the music, the words and the ideas behind them, in choreographed ASL. It is often difficult to translate songs into ASL, but as with any good translation you have to challenge yourself to be creative while also sticking to the original message as much as possible. I feel we were able to really catch the rhythm of the songs and come up with new and dynamic interpretations of the words. ASL is a subtle, complex, and beautiful language that is fully capable of expressing the true meaning of music. And after all, music is for everyone. Just because we are Deaf or hard of hearing doesn't mean we can't enjoy the music. We enjoy hearing or feeling it, dancing to the beat of it, expressing ourselves with the music and through the music, and embodying the music with our very physical and visual language.