Deaf Explorer contacting schools in Wolverhampton, and offering a free high-quality dance workshop with Billy Read. Billy wants to involve young deaf children and young deaf people with an interest in dance in his project at The Way Youth Zone during the October Half term. He hopes that by involving schools in the recruitment and audition process young people who are new to the Way will get involved in the show Like Mirabai on Friday 28 th October 2016.
Read an interview with Billy Read in Participate 4 – a magazine published by Foundation for Community Dance
The workshop is funded by Arts Council England. If you are a school would like to make a booking for an inclusive workshop at your school, please contact.
My name is Rinkoo Barpaga and I am Deaf and use British sign language. I am known as a Deaf stand up Comedian. I have a solo show that’s tell my story. It’s called “Am I Funny” I now want to tour the show again. Please book the show, audiences really like what I do. The show was presented in small venues and was nearly sold out in all but one. They include Arena Wolverhampton, Mac Birmingham and Tristam Bates Theatre Camden, London. The show lasts 1 hour 10 minutes. I use British Sign Language and the performance is interpreted into English – spoken word by an interpreter.
Rinkoo Barpaga is a deaf British Sign Language story teller. In 2012 he spent two weeks immersed in the American deaf story-telling and comedy scene, inspiring him to a new challenge; winning over deaf and hearing mixed audiences. In 2015 he received an Arts Council England Grant to take him back to America to seek his peers’ input on the new material. On returning to the UK, he created a story-telling performance, called,”Am I Funny”.
West Midlands based disability guru, Alan McLean interviews Deaf dancer Billy Read about his Arts Council funded collaboration with Italian dance artist, Giulia Marchetti who can see the drama in British Sign Language and has the skills to bind the language into dance. 
