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| Tiffany Caprarella |
A story in the Toronto Star by writer Nick Westoll and with files from Kristin Rushowy tells of an imaginative program as Northern Secondary School. Dance classes for the hearing impaired appear to be among the many innovative ways of teaching for which Northern is known. At the front of this class for the 2015 year is Tiffany Caprarella, whose background is in physical theatre. The program uses lights, rhythms, vibrations and visual cues on a smartboard to teach the hard of hearing to dance. “They can all hear sound on a vibrational level in their bodies, or feel it underfoot,” Ms. Caprarella told the Star. “When we work on movement in class, we have a heavy bass sound system that literally makes the windows shake in class.” Caprarella said the school’s gym offers the best place to feel vibrations. Westoll write that besides dancing, teacher Caprarella and the students talk about how movements affect one another and how people pick up movements from friends and cultures. “It’s perfectly natural for deaf and hard of hearing students to be dancers, but … it did make me — a hearing person — challenge my automatic entry points into dance,” Caprarella said. Nick Westoll Toronto Star
