Rehearsing in the studio at Ballet Tennessee, Joseph Lynch moves with a fluidity that is remarkable for his gangly 6-foot, 3-inch height.
At his instructor’s command, the ballet dancer precisely times a leap to accent the soaring music. In the moment, artist and music are one.
Yet, were Lynch to remove his two, unobtrusive hearing aids, there would be only silence.
“Without my hearing aids, I’m legally deaf,” he said. “I can’t hear noise except for really loud sounds. With my digital hearing aids, I can hear general conversation. I have trouble with whispers or really soft noises.”
Lynch said he relies on other senses to compensate for the hearing loss.
“I use my sense of touch to feel vibrations. Theaters have speakers facing the stage on the floor. If the music becomes too soft, I can feel the music’s vibrations conducted through the flooring.
“Sometimes I’m more on the music than the others,” he said, chuckling.
Anna and Barry VanCura, co-founders of Ballet Tennessee, said they have had other students with hearing impairments at the barre, but Lynch is their first hearing-impaired student to rise to the professional level since they opened their studio in 1984.
Lynch, 20, has received an apprenticeship with the Montgomery (Ala.) Ballet Company. He begins his training with that troupe Monday and will remain there until April.
“To me, that’s what makes his story phenomenal,” said Anna VanCura. “When he came to us three years ago, he was a beginner. Now he has become an apprentice with the Montgomery Ballet.”
DIAGNOSIS
Lynch said he was 3 years old when his hearing loss was diagnosed; and its cause is still not completely known.
“My parents, Cara Welsh and John Lynch, had the choice of either getting me to learn to speak or to learn sign language,” he said. “If a child uses sign language, he becomes reliant on that because sign language is easier than speaking. My parents didn’t want me to become reliant on signing.”
Elaborating on her son’s hearing range, Welsh said: “Unaided, he would hear a 747 (jet) landing but probably not a train passing. There is no speech level he’d hear. Aided, his hearing is brought up to normal conversation.”
She adds that most audiologists, when seeing his tests, would tell her that even with hearing aids her son should be using sign language.
“They tell me he couldn’t possibly talk. They are amazed. Every day that he goes out into the world and doesn’t have someone interpreting for him is astonishing to me,” she said.
Lynch, who describes himself as “a hard-core lip reader,” scores in the 95th percentile for lip reading.
Welsh said her son was never placed in special classes at his schools. He did wear a backpack-style auditory-enhancing monitor through middle school but refused to use even that when he reached high school.
He talks of coping with daily frustrations such as teachers unwittingly giving instructions to the class while their backs are turned, which left him out. His mother adds that simply enjoying a movie was difficult because the actors’ action doesn’t always face the camera, making it difficult to lip-read.
“Additionally, electronic sound going into electronic ears is distorted,” she said.
But the same patience and perseverance Lynch developed in the classroom he showed in the dance studio as he pursued his passion for ballet.
BEGINNING BALLET
Three years ago, Lynch enrolled at Ballet Tennessee. He said he became hooked on ballet after seeing a performance by the Center for Creative Arts’ repertory group while taking a prospective student tour in eighth grade.
He began with some classes at a local studio, but most of his training he received at the performing arts magnet school.
“He was still learning fundamentals after three years when he came to us,” said Anna VanCura.
“There was a bit of anger when it became apparent to him that he had not been progressing. Even though he was frustrated, he said ballet was his passion. He wanted to learn, and we understood,” she said.
His work ethic impressed the VanCuras.
“He always came to class prepared and stayed the latest. He took instruction well. He showed sensitivity when partnering,” Anna VanCura said.
“Sometimes he was so focused on his dance, that if he didn’t catch what we said, he’d just keep going until we could get close enough to catch his attention.”
The VanCuras said their student’s “singular focus” for dance was his best asset.
RISING TO THE TOP
It was this drive, his passion for his art, that Elie Lazar, artistic director of Montgomery Ballet, said caught his attention when Lazar was a guest instructor at a Ballet Tennesssee summer intensive.
“In meeting Joe, I realized his passion for his art. His willingness and capability of taking and utilizing instruction was very exciting for me,” Lazar said in a telephone interview.
Lazar kept in touch with the teen through Facebook over the following year. He said he advised Lynch to lay out his possibilities, the goals he wanted to accomplish, then choose the best route to achieve them.
Lazar said when Lynch drove to Montgomery to audition, he was again impressed.
“It was another sign of his seriousness. It showed he was ambitious,” said the director, adding Lynch’s hearing impairment was never an issue.
“When I grew up in Israel, there was a company of deaf dancers. They felt vibrations through the wooden floor. From that day, there was an acceptance from me because it did not affect the art itself,” Lazar explained.
Montgomery was one of six companies to which Lynch auditioned last spring. He received offers of either and apprenticeship or graduate study from three.
MOVING TO MONTGOMERY
Lynch will serve an eight-month apprenticeship in Montgomery. He will take classes with the company, understudy roles as well as learn his own roles.
“He will dance all the time,” said Lazar. “He will be provided classes that will build his potential as a male dancer.”
The apprenticeship is unpaid. Lynch said he has been working third shift at a local Walmart to pay for his study.
“I work third shift so I can dance during the day. I get off at 7 a.m., get two or three hours of sleep, come in for dance classes, get a couple more hours of sleep and go to work from 11 to 7,” Lynch said.
“For me, dance is a way to separate myself from the world. I leave the social stuff, the stereotypes, behind. It’s a way to express my feelings.”