Yellow Wiggle Emma Watkins shows deaf kids how to dance
Yellow Wiggle Emma Watkins is performing a new show in the Sydney Festival without her wiggly counterparts to show deaf children their impairment is no barrier to learning how to dance — even though they can’t hear music.
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Seven years after pulling on a colourful jersey and hopping into the Big Red Car, Yellow Wiggle Emma Watkins will step out of character for the first time to trumpet a message as loudly as she can.
Watkins will use her non-Wiggle performances at the Sydney Festival to show deaf kids that their impairment is no barrier to dancing as joyously as anyone else — even though they can’t hear the music.
“There’s no reason for a deaf performer not to be a dancer,” Watkins told The Sunday Telegraph.
Watkins will appear at Campbelltown Arts Centre, in Sydney’s south west, from January 16 to 18 in a contemporary theatre work called She Conjured The Clouds.
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The rest of the Wiggles are on holidays but Watkins is looking forward to sharing her experience with them when they return.
“The things you learn in external projects you can always bring back to your Wiggle family,” she said.
Watkins invited Elvin Lam, a young adult dancer whose deafness didn’t stop him from studying ballet from the age of 20, to be her partner.
Watkins and Lam will perform a dance in which they miraculously become a mirror image of each other.
Watkins said talented performers with deafness include Thomas McClintock of The Australian Ballet. The company’s website says McClintock has “profound bilateral hearing loss, and has cochlear implants in both ears”.
Watkins knows McClintock and hopes to collaborate with him on a future dance work.
But Watkins is frustrated that few deaf people are encouraged or supported to become performers.
She has a passion for the deaf community and for Auslan, the Australian sign language, which dates back to her childhood when she learned key sign words so she could play with two deaf friends.
“We need to celebrate (Auslan),” Watkins said.
“We don’t do anything (for the deaf). That’s why She Conjured The Clouds is so wonderful. It’s groundbreaking. It’s so great to be able to put deaf people in the forefront of this festival.”
The show is for all ages and abilities. It’s about the adventures of two children as they meet swamp creatures, carnivorous ghost bats and bird witch puppets.
Justene Williams, whose career was nurtured in western Sydney, created the show whose characters include a gang of revving native motorbike frogs, a drum-bellied creature and a ball of fairy floss.
Alongside Watkins and Lam, performers will include Paralympic athlete Paul Nunnari.