Deaf-blind people “sang” the song of the St. Petersburg group

The Foundation for the Support of the Deaf-Blind “Connection” and the St. Petersburg charity art project “Music is Close” released a joint work – a video clip for the song “Like Beyond the Forest” by the River Orchestra group. In the video, the song, together with the musicians, is performed by the inhabitants of the assisted living house in the village of Knyazevo, Lyubov Serebryakova, Alexei Zhivagin and Zhanna Veretnikova, people with simultaneous visual and hearing impairments. They recite the lyrics of the song in sign language.

“It was interesting for me to see how these people communicate, and even more so, how they“ sing ”, – says the director of the video, Marina Evseeva, – Once I studied sign language and I know that this is a full-fledged language, with its own syntax and vocabulary. Lyubov, Zhanna and Aleksey turned out to be very open and cheerful people. For editing, it was necessary to make several takes of each verse. It was very unusual for me, a man from the street, but they were patient. Natalya Koritskaya, an employee of the center and our guide, helped us with translation on the set.”

The Foundation for the Support of the Deaf and Blind “Connection” was established in 2014 at a meeting of the Supervisory Board of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives. The decision to establish the fund was dictated by the fact that, despite the rich historical experience and achievements in this area, the deaf-blind people in Russia have been out of the attention of the authorities and society in recent decades.

The charitable art project “Music is Close” appeared in 2019 with the assistance of the St. Petersburg charitable foundation “Close Others”. Initially, the main goal of the project was to hold small concerts for people with disabilities who live or have lived for a long time in isolation from society.

The River Orchestra is a Petersburg musical group that has existed since 2018 and performs folk rock. The song “Like Beyond the Forest” was specially recorded for a video clip featuring deaf-blind people.