Justin Perez

Justin Perez is an American poet who, born deaf himself, has been fascinated all his life by performance art and the various modes of storytelling that exist in American Sign Language (ASL). During his teenage years, he himself developed new performance techniques in sign language and also perfected corresponding facial expressions. Thus, he became adept at visual vernacular, a poetic form of expression in sign language that Perez has mastered like no other. Consequently, he is one of the world's greatest vv poets, performing in the Netherlands for the first time this year during Poetry International. Perez tells his stories with great passion, not only as a poet, but also as a teacher at, for example, the Texas School for the Deaf, the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and many other places. In 2017, he won the ASL Elements competition with a vv performance much loved by fans: a story about Super Mario Kart.

Check Justin Perez on YouTube