Few months ago, Jid Derecho- a friend and a fellow flow arts enthusiast came up with a brilliant idea for 28th Birthday Project: To Introduce Flow Arts to Hearing-impaired students of Mandaue City Central School. I was intrigued by the idea, and immediately agreed to help her materialize this project.
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| A giant tarpaulin greeted us as we entered the school: InnerFlow- our aim was to help hearing-impaired students find their inner flow by introducing them to Flow Arts through poi and hula-hooping. |
When Jid inquired about purchasing hula-hoops from me, I offered to donate some hoops instead. With any production, it's inevitable that not every item can pass quality check. Having been in the hoop business for three years, I have accumulated around 50 plus slightly damaged collapsible hula-hoops. Though they didn't pass QC, they were nevertheless 100% hoopable and I didn't have the heart to throw them away knowing they could make some kids very happy.
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| Left: Marini Sunner Tabon-Esguerra and Jid Derecho were one of the first people to arrive in the scene. The 25 plus collapsible hula-hoops arranged according to size and weight. |
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| Teacher Nino leads the poi class. |
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| Me leading the hoop class. |
Finally the students arrive at the basketball court. The translators/teachers used sign language and asked them to divide themselves into two separate groups for hooping and poi. They would later switch groups so they would be able to play with both props.
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| A few drills to warm up the class |
One of the bigger challenges we had to face was communication. I often speak out in my hoop classes. I later learned that I didn't need my voice in order to teach, I just needed to show them through my movements and they were happy to follow.
With the help of the translators, we learned to sign a few words ourselves. Words like "try", "practice", and "very good" came in very handy when communicating with the students.
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| Some of the students were able to voice out some words. Larrie Jay for instance, loved to say "Wow!" and "Salamat". |
Free Play
Towards the end of the afternoon, we let loose and allowed the students to play with their props. There was plenty of creativity to go around.
Since we showed them our talents, they returned the gesture by showing us theirs.
Performances
We capped the afternoon off with some performances from the Flow Arts Team. It was definitely different performing for the hearing-impaired. Most of the time they sat quietly with their faces in awe.
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| Luigi opens up the show with a mesmerizing contact juggling performance |
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| Crush ng Bayan- Ramon performs for his alma-mater. |
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| Ray An with his daring moves |
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| Teacher Nino |
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| And finally I end the show with a hoop routine. |
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| Despite being hearing-impaired the students made a lot of noise. Cheering in clapping with enthusiasm throughout the entire show. |
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| Delicious empanadas and juice for everyone thanks to Mayyang. |
Distribution of Props
The students were very happy to learn that they could bring home their props. We had kept it a secret the whole afternoon, but finally told them they could bring one collapsible hoop and one pair poi each.
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| Students lined up in orderly fashion to pick out their hoop and poi. |
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| A perfect combination . Sock poi used to bind the collapsible hoops together. |
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| Group shot: Everybody brings out their new props. |
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| Big big thanks to the Flow Arts Cebu Team who do this for no other reason other than sheer passion for the Flow Arts! |
