On Saturday, November 4th at 3:30 p.m. IMAGE held their annual concert inside of Carver Hall’s auditorium.

IMAGE is an American Sign Language performance group on campus that is made up of five students, an advisor and a representative from the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community, Debbie Roberts.  Students include, Co-presidents Riley Draddy and Kimberly Mitchell and members Maria Melchiona, Vanessa Valenti and Julianna Vega.

“Our shows idea is to bring deaf awareness and the deaf and hearing communities together,” Riley Draddy, co-president of IMAGE said. “This show brings the music to our visual languages through sign and emotion. We are very proud and excited, we put a lot of effort into it.”

Since last spring, the group has been perfecting their performance that was shown this past weekend. The show consisted of seven songs and one skit.

Songs included mini-group performances, a senior solo and full group sets.

“As a group, we sat down and chose the songs that would be performed at our show, mini groups chose their songs and Maria chose her senior solo song” IMAGE co-president, Kimberly Mitchell said. “We look at the lyrics, figure out what they really mean and decide how we turn them into ASL by what works best.”

Roberts helps by watching and analyzing what the group comes up with. She also makes sure that deaf community signs are being used and match up the timing and meaning of the lyrics that are being signed.

“Something that we really tried to include this year was much more movement,” Roberts signed. “We are going along with the song and interacting with it. We move our bodies and stay expressive. It is so important for us to show the emotion within the song.”

The IMAGE crew plans this event for almost a year with a typical fall semester performance. Usually, an ASL Idol is performed as well but, for now that is on hold.

If you have interest in joining IMAGE on stage for their show next year, you can visit their Husky Sync page for more information.