Thursday, September 22, 2022
6 – 7 pm EDT
Scheuer Auditorium

In celebration of Deaf Awareness month, participants in the ASL community are invited to attend in-person screening of a video featuring Visual Vernacular performer Justin Perez, created in collaboration with the Jewish Museum to celebrate Deaf Awareness Month.

In this video, Perez performs an interwoven collection of stories—including two original pieces—inspired by works of art in the Museum's collection.

Due to limited capacity, ASL students will not be admitted to the program.

All Access Programs are free of charge and require advance reservation. Please contact access@thejm.org or 212.423.3289 for more information or to register.

About Justin Perez: 

Justin Perez is a Visual Vernacular Performer, educator and consultant owner. He is also one of co-host for VV underground monthly on Facebook Live and YouTube, a space for Deaf community to creatively play with VV through performance and storytelling. 

Visual Vernacular is a unique form of American Sign Language performance, with elements of poetry and mime developed by Deaf artists. This powerful storytelling style combines strong movement and classifier ASL signs, with gestures and facial expressions, to capture the world in all its visual complexity. 

Cinematic effects are key features of performance, such as creating long shots or zoom, playing with fast or slow motion, and panoramic views. Role shifting is another way to play with storytelling. An artist can use movement to morph into different characters, or even objects, to help build a story. By combining these techniques, artists create a very visually exciting and accessible way to enhance storytelling.

This program will be presented without captions.

Please email info@thejm.org or call 212.423.3200 ext. 0 with any questions.