2023-08-27 07:58:06
Périnne Diot has been training in her living room for three months. This Sunday, August 27, she will have to go on stage at the Rock en Seine grove, in front of thousands of excited festival-goers. However, it is not she who will sing. She is a qualified sign language interpreter and will chansign the concert of rapper-rocker Zed Yun Pavarotti.
As its name suggests, the principle of this practice is quite simple: the performers stand alongside the groups on stage and translate the lyrics of the songs to the hearing-impaired audience. “But we are not here only to transcribe a textdetails the thirties with enthusiasm, it is also necessary to render the emotions, the intensities of the voices, the rhythm of the music. »
Render the emotions of the voice
To do this, she must immerse herself in the world of singers, whom she generally meets for the first time on the day of the concert. Once Périnne Diot has received the text and the sound, she sets to work: learning the lyrics by heart, then translating them taking into account the music, and modifying it until she obtains the most faithful and complete as possible.
Her companion, Yassine, who has shared the living room-office for the past three months, testifies to the passion she shows. “She is a hard worker, very invested, especially when she is looking for the best way to translate the metaphors into the texts of the two songs she is going to perform”, he explains.
The singer must also find the right tone to stick to the genre of the music. “For example, if I’m translating metal, the voices are usually more carried so I’m going to make bigger gestures. For rap, it will be more jerky to stick to the rapid flow of the lyrics, and the classic will generally be quite round, I sign more in height”, explains Périnne Diot, suiting the action to the word. All this also presupposes physical preparation, because “there is a high risk of tendonitis”laughs the young woman.
Spotlight at the Super Bowl
This profession, still little known in France, has been completely democratized in the United States. The act Americans with Disabilities has required venues and festivals to provide an interpreter for the hearing impaired since 1990. This binding legislation brought the profession into the global spotlight during the 2023 Super Bowl halftime show, followed live by nearly of 119 million viewers in the United States, where Rihanna’s sign language interpreter delivered an impressive performance, igniting social networks and almost stealing the show from the pop star.
France is far from reaching this level of inclusiveness, as even some speeches by the President of the Republic may not be translated into sign language. The government had nevertheless undertaken, a month before the start of the first confinement, to strengthen “the accessibility of essential programs for our fellow citizens”.
“In fact, we don’t realize that it’s a whole forgotten public”, laments the interpreter whose vocation was born of a « frustration », when she couldn’t communicate with a deaf boy when she was a child. It happens that festivals only provide vibrating vests, but the songwriter protests: “Vibrations aren’t everything, a whole part of the show is missing. »
More and more requests in France too
But Périnne Diot assures her, her job is growing and she receives more and more requests for songwriting. The collective 10 Doigts en cavale, which she co-founded, received around fifteen festival requests this summer, compared to three or four when it was created, just four years ago. The Les Vieilles Charrues festival, for example, offered translated songs for the first time this year.
Families and mixed couples, that is to say hearing and deaf, can thus participate for the first time in their life in a musical event. “People tell me: it’s great, I’m not left outsays Périnne Diot. It is a question of equality and sharing. » Conscious of leaving aside a whole part of their public, artists are also more and more interested in this practice. Thus, little by little, the chansign makes its nest.
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