Former Lismore girl Anna Seymour is making a name for herself as a contemporary dancer whose deafness allows her to approach the discipline from a different perspective. She talked to the Lismore App about what Lismore means to her, having her portrait painted on a building seven-storeys high, appearing on the hit comedy show Get Krack!n and how deaf people can enjoy music and dancing.

I live down in Melbourne now but I was born and went to school and university in Lismore. My family lived in Wyrallah then later moved to East Ballina. I went to Lismore Public and Lismore High because that’s where all the Deaf kids went (because of the Deaf Unit and the teachers specially trained to teach Deaf students).

Anna at the UK's Royal School for the Deaf in 2001 with her aunt Bronwyn Watson, who learned sign language after Anna's birth and became a Deaf advocate and sign language interpreter. PHOTO: Supplied.

After I finished Year 12, I went to the UK for work for a year and did some travelling around Europe. It was when I came back to study at Southern Cross University that I saw Lismore with fresh eyes and fell in love with the place and people. I just remembered Lismore being hot and muggy all the time when I was at school! I love how eccentric it is and how welcoming it feels. It's full of memories and stories for me. I have a lot of nostalgia for Lismore.

I feel very lucky to have grown up in Lismore and the Northern Rivers as a Deaf person. There is a very strong grassroots Deaf community there. Lismore was the second biggest Deaf community in NSW after Sydney. There was the Deaf Centre first established by Karen Lloyd, a wonderful woman who is sadly not with us anymore, and my aunty Bronwyn Watson. Karen was the first qualified Auslan interpreter in Lismore and my aunty Bronwyn was the second.

Karen and Bronwyn established the Deaf Centre which was really just a safe place for the Deaf community to meet and chat. I remember visiting the Deaf Centre and being surrounded by Deaf adults chatting away. There were theatre nights where anyone could perform skits. Us Deaf kids from school would often perform daggy skits such as converted fairy tales. We always made the characters Deaf and swap genders. Instead of losing Cinderella's shoe, we'd have her lose her hearing aid.

The Deaf Centre also provided services for the Deaf community such as phone calls and assistance with filling in paperwork. They were the days before the national relay service and mobile phones.

There were about 10-15 Deaf people at school which is really lucky as that is quite uncommon. There must have been something in the water to have so many Deaf kids in a small country town! I was in a Deaf class in primary school but was mainstreamed in high school.

Looking back on my childhood, I feel really proud to be part of Lismore's Deaf community, and that gave me the grassroots community values, as opposed growing up in the city.

Anna (far left) as a youngster with her dance troupe. PHOTO: Supplied.

I started dancing when I was six years old. I did jazz, tap and ballet. I didn't last too long in ballet! I did classes in Alstonville with Suzanne Whiteman who is still teaching now. I was in the dance group at primary school but I stopped when I was in high school.

I have always loved dancing and yearned to be a dancer but I pushed that desire down as I just didn't think it was possible for a Deaf person to be a dancer.

When I was about 20 years old, I saw Bangarra (an all indigenous contemporary dance company based in Sydney) perform and I was blown away. I literally had an epiphany. "That's what I want to do" I thought. It was like a "voice" was screaming at me "What are you waiting for? You know you need to do this!" and it was what preoccupied my mind for a long time. I decided to move down to Melbourne to explore that avenue. I was terrified. Eventually, I studied a Bachelor of Creative Arts in Contemporary Dance and now I am here…

I love how empowering dance is. I love how physical it is and how it keeps me strong, alive and connected.

I am always asked: how can you enjoy dance and music despite being deaf? To me, that shows a limited mindset about dance. It shows the high value society places on sound, audio and spoken languages as being somewhat superior to visceral, nonverbal communication and signed languages.

Anna says Deaf people can enjoy music and dancing in a different way to how hearing people usually do. PHOTO: Supplied.

Sure, of course I enjoy music and dancing to music - I just do in a different way. Deaf people often are made to feel that we are not meant to enjoy or have access to music or dancing. But music and sound can be experienced in different ways - through our body - not just the auditory channels of our body. Our bodies are very complex and intelligent. You just need to tap into your body and trust that your body knows.

I love the work of Christine Sun Kim, a Deaf sound artist based in Berlin. I love Keith Flint from the Prodigy. I did room service for him when I was working at the Beach Hotel in Byron and he was so warm and friendly. I grew up dancing to musicians of Jack Johnson, Michael Franti and John Butler at various gigs in Byron.

But what I love most of all is disco music!

These days I work on different projects. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that artists do that people are not generally aware of.

I am working with a visual artist on a video work, a filmmaker on a new script, preparing my work SPIN for touring, preparing for a new creative development for The Delta Project choreographed by Stephanie Lake in June. The work never stops!

I also do some casual teaching at Victorian College for the Deaf and Auslan Consultancy. My teaching work varies from teaching a high school class, teaching Auslan for Victorian Police and tutoring a Deaf man from Bhutan. I also keep up with my training in dance and yoga.

My last major work was SPIN which was in the Melbourne Fringe last year. SPIN is a participatory dance performance with a DJ and Deaf hosts. It was inspired by my travels in New York, San Fransisco, Mexico, Cuba and Berlin in 2017 when I was there for two residences; one in New York and one in Berlin.

Anna's performance piece SPIN was a big hit at the Melbourne Fringe last year. PHOTO: Supplied.

I performed my duet work (Distraction Society) at the International Deaf Dance Festival in San Francisco and the afterparty had a huge impact on me. It was a throbbing dance party and the dance floor was packed full of Deaf people. The DJ was Deaf. There were some people there who could hear but most people in that room were Deaf - and they had full command of the dance floor. I have never seen anything like that before. Certainly not in Australia.

Then I went to Burning Man in the Nevada desert, Mexico, Cuba and Berlin where I observed social dancing formations and experienced different dance clubs. I saw different uses of public spaces for dancing, individualistic and collective expression, different attitudes about bodies and sexuality.

Those experiences got me thinking about subcultures and the presence of Deaf community in those spaces. I wondered what a subservie dance party with Deaf Hosts would look and feel like?

That inspired me to re-create an experience for audiences in Melbourne.

I am hoping to do a national tour of SPIN this year and next year – NORPA in Lismore is on the bucket list!

In 2017, a mutual friend contacted me and told me Guido van Helten was looking for a dancer for his next commissioned work and would I be interested to meet him? Guido paints enormous murals on public buildings, often in collaboration with Fintan Magee who recently painted a mural on the Lismore City Library.

I met Guido for a coffee and chat. I didn't have much information about the project to start with so I wasn't sure what to expect. I had the understanding he was looking for a dancer to model for a painting which would complement the angles of the building.

When he told me which building it was, I couldn't believe it. It was the Melbourne Polytechnic building in Prahran, which is the home of the Diploma of Auslan course and Deaf ConnectED. The Victorian College for the Deaf is just around the corner. It is a significant space in the Deaf community. It was very special for me to contribute to a public space where Deaf people congregate, and to bring more recognition to the Deaf community and Deaf artists.

Guido van Helten's mural of Anna on the Melbourne Polytechnic building in Prahran. PHOTO: Supplied/Glenn Snashall.

Guido wasn't aware of the significance of the building either. After coffee, we went to this building in Collingwood which had a lot of abandoned spaces. I was given free rein to do what I wanted and I improvised different movements inspired by the architecture of the building. Guido completed the mural in only 5 days.

It’s pretty incredible to see myself up there on a building. It’s a honour.

Recently I had the opportunity to appear on an episode of Get Krack!n, which is a satire comedy TV show on the ABC. The episode, written by Jess Walton, was focused on disability and was a brilliant commentary the ignorance and discrimination about disability. My character on that episode was an egotistical, unprofessional and unethical Auslan interpreter. It was a fun role!

Anna (bottom left) appeared on a recent episode of the ABC's Get Krack!n as a sign language interpreter. PHOTO: Supplied.

The first day on set was daunting. There were so many cameras and screens and crew. But the two Kates and the crew were all really nice and made us feel welcome.

I am definitely hooked. I love acting and want to do more acting for TV, film and theatre.

In the future I’m just keen to do more dancing, acting, producing, travelling, adventures, community and spend lots of time in the ocean. 

For the time being that means staying in the big city, but eventually I want to come back and live in the Northern Rivers.