A Deaf Cantatrice of a Duo

Now on the Way up

It is extremely difficult for deaf children to study sign language. To the big disappointment of her father, 4-year-old Erika of Tokyo undoubtedly found it unamusing. One afternoon, however, Erika came home, and unexpectedly talked to her father in fluent sign language, “Please take me to a park tomorrow.”

What happened to Erika? According to an episode introduced recently on a TV program, she learned the expression from a couple of street musicians. Erika and her mother encountered the duo on the day on their way home from shopping. Erika was fascinated by the performance of the duo and stood rooted to the spot for hours.

The young couple, called Atsu-Kiyo after their names of 29-year-old Atsushi and 27-year-old Kiyomi, was then not popular indeed. On the street they sang to the guitar played by Atsu. Kiyo introduced lyrics by sign language, danced and sang in chorus even. It didn’t take long for little Erika to mime the songbird all over. “Please take me to a park tomorrow” is no doubt a verse of their lyric.

Atsu never forgets a day in the winter of 2001 when a girl passed to him a piece of paper during his routine street performance at a shopping district in Tokyo. The scribbled note said: “Can I stand by you and introduce your lyrics by sign language to deaf people someday? “

Kiyo, who motivated Erika to communicate with her daddy by sign language, is a brisk female born with serous hearing difficulties. When she found herself deaf, she thought she had to give up her dream in her childhood to become a cantatrice. However, nothing could take music away from her: she enjoyed the extra-curricular activities of baton twirling and rhythmic gymnastics in her school days.

Atsu admits that this has helped her enhance her own powers of expressions. He was also glad to know that his new partner could catch the faint, low sound of his guitar. When Kiyo failed to carry a tune, Atsu signed her to sing in a higher, or lower tune. Eventually they found they could beautifully harmonize on a song.

The newly-born couple’s musical performance on their favorite spot soon drew the attention of local people. Passers-by froze their steps in wonder and a big audience began to throng around Atsu-Kiyo. A roar of applause! They became the most popular presence of the district.

They had a stretch of luck in February, 2005. Having their eyes on the duo of rising fame, NHK, a unique nation-wide public broadcasting system of Japan, chose their newly-released song as one of the "Songs for Everyone,” the system’s popular TV programs, where the duo’s “The Bus We’ve Got on” was played a couple of times everyday for clean two months.

Tokyoites can now enjoy their live performance on the street of Harajuku, a fashionable shopping center which attracts very many visitors from abroad. This is the site of their choice, because here they think they can familiarize themselves with how their foreign audiences react. Atsu-Kiyo has fancies of singing and dancing, on as many streets overseas as possible, hand in hand with foreign people with hearing difficulties.

The duo sings:

The bus we’ve got on keeps rolling on

After the light it keeps rolling on

……

Nice and easy we keep rolling on

Keep rolling on

Dreaming a dream

References:

http://www.office-yamato.com/atsukiyo/index.html

http://osaka.yomiuri.co.jp/possibility/030424.htm