Serenade of sounds of silence

By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer

It starts with lessons in P.E. class, and the tap, tap, tap of the teacher's hand on your shoulder to help you keep the beat.

James Frank and Fredelyn Manangan communicate in sign language as they take to the dance floor at their prom. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

Glide through the motions of the foxtrot, the cha-cha, swing, the Electric Slide and the Macarena.

And even though you can't hear the music or distinguish the notes, you're dancing.

So with your tuxedo — or your fancy aloha shirt — or your hair in a thousand ringlets and a corsage on your wrist — you're ready to enter Hawai'i's only prom for deaf students.

Here, you feel the music.

And it's only outsiders who find it so remarkable that the dancing is good.

Juanita Nakamura, 21, one of the school's most graceful dancers who can tear it up when she swings, shrugs her shoulders when explaining how she learned to dance so well.

"I feel it," Nakamura said. "I feel the boom, boom, boom. The P.E. teacher practiced with us. I memorized what to do and I got smoother."

At the Japanese Cultural Center on April 13, about 45 students from the Hawai'i School for the Deaf and Blind celebrated the prom, a traditional springtime rite of passage that for deaf teenagers differs only in the slightest of ways than dances for hearing students.

With the music turned up loud enough and some speakers set on the wooden dance floor, deaf students can feel the music so well thumping in their chest and in the mastoid bone, which is behind the ear, that they can keep the beat.

"It's wonderful because it's a normalized environment for them," said math and P.E. teacher Jeff Stabile. "They want to be able to do what hearing students do. Too often they don't get to have the normal experiences because they're so sheltered. Because you're deaf you don't very get exposed to things like dancing because no one thinks to teach you."

Vela Coryell, left, and Norybell Aradanas learn to apply makeup — a skill that required the help of an interpreter. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

A few things help create a good dance environment for the deaf: a wooden dance floor and low ceilings so the sounds reverberate. The smaller the room, the better. "When it's so loud in a contained area it gives them cues," Prickett said.

Stabile tells students they can keep a small balloon in their hand or their pocket because the vibrations are conducted easily through the trapped air.

The deejay turns the bass up high enough that the chairs shudder and the tablecloths sway ever so slightly with the rhythm. The highest frequencies go first in hearing loss, but the lower sounds can sometimes be distinguished by the deaf, making songs with heavy bass a popular choice.

In previous years, the music has been turned up so loud that all of the adult chaperons have had to stay outside the ballroom.

One girl walked across the ballroom during the prom smiling and waving at friends, head moving side to side, arms bent at the elbow and fingers snapping. She was exactly in time with the music, but several yards away from the speakers, prompting even a teacher who has watched all of these young bodies dance before to widen her eyes and whisper, "Wow."

The Hawai'i Center for the Deaf and Blind has about 83 students from kindergarten through 12th grade, making it necessary to open up what would be a seniors-only event at most campuses to all students in the upper grade levels. Students from the deaf programs at Pearl City High School and McKinley High School are also invited, and former students and teachers flock to the event each spring.

Despite the name of the campus, all of the students who attend the school are deaf. Blind students attend mainstream Department of Education schools.

Although Stabile was the teacher in charge of the prom, he had students form a committee that did virtually all of the work. "This prom is their work," he said. "If you do it for them, you're handicapping them. I gave them the Yellow Pages."

Trina Otani reaches for an airborne balloon at the deaf students' prom, which was held last weekend at the Japanese Cultural Center. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

"I had never tried it, but I did it anyway," she said. "I had never used the relay service. We planned for more than a month and things got down to the wire. I just took it on. I wanted to get this prom going so I took responsibility. I wanted to show that I could be a leader and improve my leadership skills."

For the girls, preparations for the evening started earlier in the week when E'Jay Maldonado, director of beauty and international trainer for Body & Soul, came to the school with a giant makeup case. The girls took over a corner of the library, left the boys outside, and got a lesson in colors and application. English teacher Sydney Freitas acted as interpreter, translating makeover explanations like "we're going to add some glitter just to spunk it up a bit."

"Even this is so new for them," Freitas said. "It allows them to have a normal experience. They all have mothers and sisters at home, but they may not know how to sign well enough to teach them makeup."

Navigating a makeup counter without an interpreter is nearly impossible for a deaf teenager, she said.

And most parents of deaf children never learn to sign fluently. "The parents can communicate some of the basic family skills," Prickett said. "Most of them never learn to sign fluently enough to communicate in depth."

From the makeup lessons to the dance practice, these students received more instruction in the social graces than some of their hearing counterparts.

"They want to be exposed to it," Stabile said. "They want to have the same experiences as hearing kids. Now they know things that they can teach their hearing cousins and friends. How many high school kids know how to ballroom-dance? Not many. Now they know something that other kids don't and they can teach them. That is a big deal to a deaf person."

The prom opens with a sit-down dinner. Easy listening plays softly in the background, only a handful of adults speak aloud and the clank of the silverware carries across the room.

Cierra Kawa'auhau, queen of the prom held by the Hawai'i School for the Deaf and Blind, takes a break off the floor with Jay-are Sabalo. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

Prom King Michael McRae and Queen Cierra Kawa'auhau shyly opened the dance floor.

"I didn't expect to win anything," McRae said. "I didn't want to. The king and queen have to go out there and dance first. I didn't want to do that."

But he stayed there nearly all night.

Stabile said he laughed when the deejay asked him what kind of music everyone wanted played. "I told him, 'I don't care. They don't care,'" Stabile said. In the end, it was some swing, some Latin and a little bit of everything else.

Steve Laraquiente, vice principal at the school, said that many deaf people not only master the dancing but go on to become musicians. "Music is not hard to learn because it's repetitive," he said. "You can count. You can feel."

After the last song is played, the room full of teenagers goes silent. But no one notices. They're in the middle of conversations, hugging people goodbye, finding their cameras and shoes they've kicked off during the night.

As one senior leaves the room, he looks at the principal and smiles. The senior then slides his index finger down his face.

He's sad that it's over.

Reach Jennifer Hiller at jhiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.