{"id":337767,"date":"2018-12-04T04:28:37","date_gmt":"2018-12-04T12:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/?p=337767"},"modified":"2026-02-12T17:20:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T01:20:49","slug":"dvp-interview-antoine-hunter-and-alice-wong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2018\/12\/04\/dvp-interview-antoine-hunter-and-alice-wong\/","title":{"rendered":"DVP Interview: Antoine Hunter and Alice Wong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Alice Wong interviewed Antoine Hunter for the Disability Visibility Project\u00ae\u00a0at StoryCorps San Francisco on January 7, 2017. Antoine recalls an important moment as a teenager when he performed a solo piece in dance class and shares what dance means to him.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1360\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?visual=true&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F539628300&#038;show_artwork=true&#038;maxwidth=1360&#038;maxheight=1000&#038;dnt=1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Text Transcript<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><b>ANTOINE HUNTER<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: I love being a dancer. It was for me, like I explained that I was outcast by both Deaf and hearing, and I felt that they just couldn\u2019t understand me. That\u2019s why I did it, [laughing] you know? You know. I was trying to figure out, why they don\u2019t like me. Just because I dance? That\u2019s ridiculous. But maybe just because they don\u2019t understand me! That\u2019s why they don\u2019t like me, you know. So, I talk funny. I\u2019m very poetic, [chuckles] you know?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It wasn\u2019t until my high school dance teacher, Dawn James, at Skyline High School, she said she wanted everybody to create a dance and work together in a group. I couldn\u2019t seem to get anybody to really work with me, so I had to do my own solo. And she was like, \u201cThat\u2019s OK. Do your solo.\u201d And after a couple of weeks, we had to show it to people, and I did my solo. I had the music, Whitney Houston <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I Will Always Love You<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and I was really nervous when I first started, you know. Here comes the music.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I don\u2019t know exactly what she\u2019s saying, but I know that I read the lyrics. She\u2019s gonna repeat the words a lot of times. I know the timing, so I would try to memorize it in my body what she\u2019s singing. And well, while she starts singing, there\u2019s a huge instrumental break, and the music just bursts into [inaudible]. And I am freer than following the lyrics, you know. And I start, I don\u2019t know what happened, you know, it\u2019s just everything was black. It was like electricity in my body. I could feel like the splash of the water coming on me, and I\u2019m rolling and I\u2019m jumping and using my hands to hold my body. And it went back to the lyrics again, so I was trying to find a way to come back. But something was still pulling me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And when the music was finished and I look around the room\u2014 [laughs] I\u2019m laughing because everybody was looking at me like I lost my mind, you know. Then they started clapping, and the teacher was like asking what do they think the dance means. They were saying, \u201cOh, it was like you were cold. You were so alone. You was reaching for love. You had love.\u201d And that was right. It was a way to communicate. It was like, wow! They understood me, and I felt like I made some connection with them, you know.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From that day on, I wanted to dance in all kind of forms. It wasn\u2019t about trying to be a professional dancer. It was just that I wanted to speak in so many languages to connect with people, you know?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>ALICE WONG<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Mmhmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>ANTOINE<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: And I wanted to learn [laughing] African dance. I wanted to do Russian. I did [inaudible]. I did traditional Mexican, you know. I made friends from different backgrounds because of the dance, the culture in dance. I didn\u2019t have to travel all over the country. I\u2019d be right here dancing and speaking their language. It really changed me, and it really brought more people in my life just because of that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, dance for me, you know, it gave healing powers, and it gave a way to connect with people. And that\u2019s all I really, that\u2019s how I feel about dance, you know? And that\u2019s my greatest passion: bringing people together.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>ALICE<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Mmhmm!<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Support Disability Media and Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/donate\/\">DONATE<\/a> to the Disability Visibility Project<\/strong>\u00ae<strong>!<\/strong><\/p>\n<h4><\/h4>\n<h4>Suggested Reference<\/h4>\n<p>Disability Visibility Project\u00ae. (2018, December 4). DVP Interview: Antoine Hunter and Alice Wong. Retrieved from:<\/p>\n<h4>Image description<\/h4>\n<p>On the left, Alice Wong an Asian American woman wearing a bright green rain jacket. She is wearing a mask over her nose attached to a gray tube which is connected to her ventilator. She is sitting closely next to Antoine Hunter,\u00a0<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a self-described handsome, dark milk chocolate, African American Man. He has long Ebony dreadlocks hair tied to back with a full Ebony-colored beard and full brown lips. He is wearing a black hoodie that says, \u201cI [heart] Being BLACK.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h4>Credits<\/h4>\n<p>Produced for the Disability Visibility Project\u00ae\u00a0by Alice Wong. Interview recorded by StoryCorps, a national nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the story of our lives. For more: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.storycorps.org\">www.storycorps.org<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.disabilityvisibilityproject.com\">www.disabilityvisibilityproject.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For any questions, please refer to the <a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/about\/terms-of-useprivacy\/\">Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alice Wong interviewed Antoine Hunter for the Disability Visibility Project\u00ae\u00a0at StoryCorps San Francisco on January 7, 2017. Antoine recalls an important moment as a teenager when he performed a solo &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2018\/12\/04\/dvp-interview-antoine-hunter-and-alice-wong\/\" class=\"read-more\">Continue Reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">DVP Interview: Antoine Hunter and Alice Wong<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":337824,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[548705951],"tags":[1907,587152584,587152585,587152583,1337,117709,587152579,17505781,587152581,587152580,587152582,25675],"class_list":["post-337767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dvp-interviews","tag-artists","tag-black-deaf-artists","tag-black-deaf-men","tag-black-deaf-people","tag-california","tag-dancers","tag-dancing","tag-deaf-artists","tag-deaf-choreographers","tag-deaf-dancers","tag-high-school","tag-oakland","post-has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/sfb003859_g2-copy.jpg?fit=3456%2C3624&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4H7t1-1pRR","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}