Like most children Antoine Hunter used his body to communicate long before he learned to speak, but it took years before anyone realized he was deaf. “I was filling in the gaps, figuring out at 125 miles an hour,” he says. Hunter, artistic director of the Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival (BAIDDF) and Urban Jazz Dance Company, can’t remember a time when he didn’t use movement and speech to communicate. “When I did speak they just thought I was speaking funny. I was about five years old when someone suggested I might be deaf.”

BAIDDF Assistant Director Zahna Simon says, “I don’t like speaking with my voice. I feel more connected to movement and can express myself more fully speaking with sign language.” Simon says in fourth grade she joined a ballet class after observing the teach

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