Izzies Award Ceremony 3/26/18

Izzies Awards Ceremony and San Diego Deaf Dance Festival (stay tuned for more details on this to come later) -- Two historic moments in 3 days, these are the moments we live for (I live for...)  As a Deaf person in a hearing world, you have to fight barriers everyday against stereotypes, inequality, inaccessibility, diaspora to name a few.  These barriers are tripled if you are a person of a color and exponentially quadrupled if you are an artist.  After 7 years of people rejecting his ideas and not offering support, Mr Antoine Hunter despite all barriers set up the first Deaf Dance Festival in 2013 as a place where Deaf artists can come together in a professional and full accessible capacity to present their talents.  It's very easy to give up when life throws you walls to stop you dead in your tracks, Mr Hunter dances around those walls to continue making his visions a reality.  The Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival (and the other Deaf Dance Festivals in San Diego and Turkey) are a special place for Deaf and Hearing performers to come together and leave feeling bonded together as a family and inspired/motivated to elevate Deaf Arts around the world.  Many of these Deaf Artists have grown up feeling alone as the only Deaf dancer of their art form in a hearing world so that when we all come together at the festival, its as if we are finding our long lost family.

It's such an honor that 5 years later, he's presented with a Special Award Honoree of the Isadora Duncan (Izzies) Award, an equivalent to the Grammys for Dance Achievement and Excellence in the Bay Area, California.  Not only am I proud of this well deserved recognition for Mr Hunter, I am honored to have performed a solo during the Awards Ceremony as a tribute to all of Mr Hunter's hard work and a celebration of recognition of Deaf Dance and Arts in the hearing world.  Thank you for this privilege.

To add to the specialness of the evening, Mr Hunter's HS teacher Ms Dawn James gave a heartfelt speech in honor of his award and my HS teacher Miss Elvia Marta was sitting in the audience.  Her encouragement and support pushed me as a dancer during my entire career and I will always honor her, regardless of Deafness or not, she saw a Dancer in me and that's what I've always been.

Thank you to Mr Hunter for staying resilient, never swaying from his vision and providing a platform of opportunities for the Deaf community.  Thank you Izzies for honoring Mr Hunter.  Thank you to everyone who has given their support.

#AntoineHunter #Urbanjazzdancecompany #zahnasimon #TheIzzies #Deaftalent #Deafdancers #BAIDDF #BayAreaInternationalDeafDanceFestival

Content description: Top title: 2018 Isadora Duncan Awards, Get your photos at:funframephoto.com. Picture of 6 Deaf smiling faces from the left, Antoine Hunter, Brian, Zahna, Maim, Joy and Bobby.

Picture of Mr Hunter wearing a blue suit holding the Izzies Award in his right hand out front and left hand up in a pose with the Izzies backdrop

Image Description:  Zahna with hair down, wearing purple shirt, black pants, black shoes and black jacket with performer tag around neck smiling and holding both forearms out to the side.  Backdrop is the Izzies and red carpet.

Picture of Urban Jazz Dance Company, Maim on left wearing green floral long sleeve shirt holding her red jacket, Mr Hunter in the middle in a blue vest, white shirt and blue tie, Zahna on the right hair down, purple shirt and black light jacket with Performer Tag around neck.  Background is of golden prints of historic events unknown to me at Brava Theater.

Content description: Zahna on stage wearing black shorts and sportsbra standing with arms and hands stretched out to the side looking up to her left.  Background screen shows "the izzies, 32nd Annual Dance Awards"

Image description:  Zahna on stage wearing black shorts and sportsbra, right leg in plie, left leg high on the side and arms in rounded second.  Background is Stage with audience and pot of flowers on the left.