Andrey Dragunov is a young Deaf guy from Russia with thousands of followers on social media because of his videos with hypnotic 'finger tutting', a kind of finger dance.
Finger-tutting
Finger tutting is a type of urban dance in which the fingers often trace almost impossible geometric figures. It became especially famous from a Samsung spot in 2011 entitled Unleash Your Fingers, which currently has over ten million views.Andrey Dragunov
Andrey is a young Deaf guy from
St. Petersburg
(Russia) who is currently 25 years old (born in 1991). He was born in a Deaf
family and started to be attracted to urban dances since he was 15 years
old, when he saw a robot style dance belonging to
popping. He memorized and practiced the movements until he did a performance at
his school with such success that it motivated him to continue dancing and,
at some point in his life, it became clear to him that he could no longer
stop dancing.
A 2013 video in which Andrey appears to be at a dinner party and improvises
a dance for the rest of the guests went viral and reached over 700,000
views.
Andrey began studying at the University of Law, but in the second year he had
to drop out because of his involvement with the group 158 Crew, with which
he reached the finals of the
World Hip-Hop Championship
in 2015, in which 3,700 dancers from 50 countries participated, finishing
fourth in the classification.
To integrate into the group, Andrey concentrates on the vibrations he feels in
his body and through his feet, works intensely on the rhythm and follows the
movements of his partners closely. In return, his classmates began learning
Sign Language to communicate with Andrey. In the following video you can see
the performance of his group in the final of the Championship:
His Time On TV
2015 was the year he also decided to take part in the TV dance contest Dance on TNT, a competition of dance talents in Russia. He was very hesitant to apply at first, but finally agreed because...I wanted to show that deafness is not a barrier. There are difficulties, as in any other competition, but they must be overcome.After competing, he received a large number of invitations to teach and the doors have been opened to new projects, including a photo exhibition, a new show with his 158 Crew and the launch of a clothing collection. Surely his passion and talent will lead him far.
Sources:
- Borodulin, G. (2015, September 7). Глухой участник проекта «Танцы» Андрей Драгунов поразил жюри и зрителей. In Imenno. Retrieved from http://www.imenno.ru/2015/09/07/328835/
- Morgunov, Ira (2016, October 7). Отсутствие слуха — это не преграда. Трудности есть всегда, с ними просто нужно бороться. In The Challenger. Retrieved from https://the-challenger.ru/challenge/otsutstvie-sluha-eto-ne-pregrada-trudnosti-est-vsegda-s-nimi-prosto-nuzhno-borotsya/
- Nsubuga, J. (2015, September 27). Deaf finger dancer shows off his moves in impressive video. In Metro UK. Retrieved from http://metro.co.uk/2015/12/27/deaf-finger-dancer-shows-off-his-moves-in-impressive-video-5586380/
