TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

entertainment

Music translator Rian Gayle invites us to reinterpret music together

By

Rian Gayle makes music come alive for those who can’t hear it and even those who can.

The Amer­i­can Sign Lan­guage music trans­la­tor moves his body to the rhythm, uses facial expres­sions to con­vey emo­tion and spends count­less hours trans­lat­ing phras­es and metaphors into signs that dri­ve home mean­ing. At TEDxSalem Jan. 5, he will not only trans­late but teach every­one to sign a pop­u­lar song to the music.

“Some peo­ple who are deaf real­ly appre­ci­ate see­ing the music in ASL,” he said, “and they say ‘oh that’s what that song means.’ They’re fas­ci­nat­ed with the signs and the trans­la­tions them­selves. Some of them think final­ly I can access music.”

With­out this type of trans­la­tion, music can fall flat with lyrics that often make lit­tle sense in direct trans­la­tion. Imag­ine read­ing the lyrics to Bohemi­an Rhap­sody with­out expe­ri­enc­ing the emo­tion or the soar­ing ups and downs. Gayle can con­vey emo­tion, tone and show whether some­one is yelling or calm.

Gayle became deaf at the age of three, but he can still pick up the beat and feel the rhythm. He start­ed music trans­la­tion per­for­mances about 15 years ago at church and now offers class­es to those who want to learn through Salem ASLu­sic.

He loves reg­gae, hip hop, blues and pop, and his favorite song is “Redemp­tion Song” by Bob Mar­ley.

“It’s a great song,” said Gayle, who, like Mar­ley, is from Jamaica.

By day Gayle is the accom­mo­da­tions coor­di­na­tor at West­ern Ore­gon University’s Office of Dis­abil­i­ty Ser­vices. He also serves on sev­er­al boards and com­mis­sions that work to bring greater access to those with dis­abil­i­ties.

Music trans­la­tion is anoth­er way to not only pro­vide that access to the deaf com­mu­ni­ty but also build bridges. The per­for­mances are for deaf and hear­ing audi­ences.

Hear­ing audi­ences get to expe­ri­ence songs and ASL in a whole new way. He invites audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion and even teach­es a few of the signs. It also brings greater aware­ness, Gayle said, “yes we are deaf, but we can have fun, and we can enjoy music.”

To any­one look­ing to team up with Gayle, he said“We can work togeth­er through music, and I can per­form with you.”

“That is some­thing that I’m try­ing to work on for the future so our com­mu­ni­ty and our lan­guage becomes more vis­i­ble,” he said.

Rian Gayle

Home­town: Kingston, Jamaica,

Edu­ca­tion: B.A.  in Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion and M.A. in Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment for per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties from Gal­laudet Uni­ver­si­ty, Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

Fam­i­ly: Wife, Laine, daugh­ter, RiLana (com­bi­na­tion of Rian and Laine)

Hob­bies: Bik­ing, hik­ing, dance, sal­sa, read­ing, watch­ing movies and row­ing with drag­on boat team “Peace Drag­on War­rior”

Favorite recent movie: “Roma”

Favorite music: “I do love reg­gae, hip hop, rap and some indie music, neo soul and Span­ish music for danc­ing.”

Favorite Food: “I do absolute­ly love Indi­an food, and the Jamaican restau­rant in Port­land serves great food.”

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Tippy Toe: Taking over the TEDx stage

By

As if there wasn’t enough to see and do, atten­dees of this year’s TEDxSalem event “Through the Look­ing Glass” will be treat­ed to a per­for­mance by Salem’s own Tip­py Toe Dance Stu­dio.

The stu­dio focus­es on bal­let, but also teach­es hip-hop, con­tem­po­rary, and pas de deux, along with fit­ness class­es and com­pet­i­tive danc­ing.

Those who came out to 2015’s “Fear­less” event will remem­ber their lights-out com­bi­na­tion per­for­mance with the Tru­Root break­danc­ing squad.

We sat down recent­ly with stu­dio founder Rebec­ca Swish­er, 32, and stu­dio man­ag­er Nicole Tea-Pel­ley, 20, about their upcom­ing per­for­mance.

TEDx Salem: Tell us about the start of the stu­dio.

Rebec­ca Swish­er: “We cre­at­ed it in 2009, and I had been work­ing local­ly as a chore­o­g­ra­ph­er for quite some time. And I kept being asked by friends and peo­ple that I would meet in the com­mu­ni­ty: ‘Oh, could you just teach my child dance, or my friend dance,’ and so I start­ed with just a hand­ful of stu­dents, actu­al­ly in my back­yard, we built a small stu­dio for it.

And I just kept think­ing, if I’m going to have a stu­dio, I want­ed to do it dif­fer­ent­ly than stu­dios had been in the past. So, we’ve real­ly grown into this family…We real­ly focus on dancers find­ing their indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, their own cre­ativ­i­ty, and just feel­ing free to express them­selves in any way. And we’ve real­ly become a fam­i­ly out of that.”

Nicole Tea-Pel­ley: “From the ground up from the lit­tle kids to the old­est dancers – We have peo­ple who are in their lat­er twen­ties here – every­body knows every oth­er per­son who dances at the stu­dio, and we all can build off of that, and we become bet­ter dancers off of that.

We all have dif­fer­ent traits and you’ll see that in every stu­dio, but com­pared to oth­er places that I’ve seen, we real­ly embrace that, and we use that to make our­selves bet­ter and more well-round­ed.”

TxS: How do you feel your per­for­mance will align with this year’s theme, “Through the Look­ing Glass?”

RS: “…when I think of TEDx, I think of a safe place where peo­ple come togeth­er to share ideas, and how it has this rip­ple effect with­in our com­mu­ni­ty when we share ideas with each oth­er. When think­ing ‘through the look­ing glass,’ I thought of that and put it on a larg­er scale.

Our piece express­es not always going with just the norm, not always just fit­ting in a par­tic­u­lar social group or way of think­ing… We’re try­ing to express to peo­ple being open to new ways of think­ing and real­ly expe­ri­enc­ing free­dom from that.

Once you’re will­ing to chal­lenge the way you’re think­ing a whole new world can open up to you.”

TxS: What can the TEDx audi­ence look for­ward to? What are you going to hit us with?

NTP: “They won’t just see dancers on a stage — they’re going to see real peo­ple, and the real emo­tions that peo­ple go through, as they, as Bec­ca was say­ing, break out of the norm of soci­ety and real­ly con­nect with some­thing in them­selves.

Because no mat­ter what somebody’s jour­ney is, every­body has gone through some­thing sim­i­lar to that, in one way or anoth­er. With this piece we are real­ly try­ing to con­nect with peo­ple on that lev­el. We get real­ly real, we get to points where we’re not doing spe­cif­ic moves, but we’re just being our­selves, and I think that peo­ple will real­ly be kind of shocked by that. And it’ll make them think real­ly hard.”

RS: “There’s also a lit­tle bit of sur­prise ele­ments in the dances, of pair­ing togeth­er dif­fer­ent styles of dance that you wouldn’t nor­mal­ly think of putting togeth­er.”

TxS: Tell me there’s going to be break­danc­ing!

RS: “There’s a lit­tle bit of break in there, yeah.” (laughs)

TxS: How do you keep it fresh?

RS: “Well, I don’t pay atten­tion to what oth­er peo­ple are doing. We def­i­nite­ly do things our own way, and we all play a part in chore­og­ra­phy, and we move the way we’re feel­ing.”

TxS: What do you want to accom­plish at TEDxSalem this year?

RS: “I want to feel like our mes­sage has been heard, and I think TEDx is a real­ly good plat­form for that. For me as an artist, when I have some­thing that I need to express, I need to be able to know that I was heard or I was seen, and it’s like some­thing in me that has to get that out.”

NTP: “I’m excit­ed about the con­nec­tion between the audi­ence and us. TEDx has audi­ence mem­bers from all walks of life, but def­i­nite­ly there’s a strong sense of peo­ple who do have the artis­tic and cre­ative minds there. And I think that if we can con­nect with some of those peo­ple and impact some of those peo­ple, that’s where we get real­ly cool new and big ideas, and that’s where that flow starts to go that we real­ly are inspired by.”

TxS: Now this is real­ly impor­tant — How are you going to avoid hit­ting the TEDxSalem sign when you dance?

RS: “That’s a real­ly good ques­tion. We’ve actu­al­ly been tap­ing out our stu­dio [floor], to say if you cross this line of tape you are going to be hit­ting the TEDx sign. So right now that’s our plan of attack.”

Learn more about the stu­dio at www.tippytoedancestudio.com, and join us Jan. 6 to catch ’em live on our stage.

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, 2018, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.