The Way We Move

A trailblazing ASL interpreter trains fast-fingered protégés to embody live acoustics in this paean to the Deaf community’s bond with music.

Amber Galloway specialises in live American Sign Language interpretation for music festivals and concerts. You might recognise her hip-hop swagger from viral online videos: she captures complex instrumentation and wordplay with her whole body, using facial expressions to evoke tones and moods. Now, this accessibility trailblazer is training new ASL music interpreters, including striving young Puerto Rican father Julian Ortiz and Angela “AV” Vilavong, a queer Laotian from Oakland. Can they master this complex skill in time to join Galloway onstage at Austin City Limits Music Festival?

As her students wrestle with live interpreting’s complex cognitive demands and poetic creative choices, Galloway’s pedagogical flair is treated with due admiration by French directorial duo Vanessa Dumont and Nicolas Davenel. For their part, Ortiz’s and Vilavong’s gifts are also evident (the former went on to live-interpret Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl half-time show, while the latter has been onstage with Céline Dion and The Chemical Brothers). But this sensitive documentary deals with tough emotions, too: Galloway is grieving her son Elijah, who was himself a promising interpreter, as she tries to pull his surviving twin Joshua from a depressive spiral. Equally, we see how Galloway and her protégés’ proudly queer, ancestral and Deaf identities help them express music’s life-affirming power. Turns out the body doesn’t just keep the score; it keeps the beat.

Content: Melbourne International Film Festival