Interview with Daniel Durant, recap of DWTS
Renca: Deaf actor, Daniel Durant from the Oscar-winning movie, CODA, was one of the contestants for Dancing With The Stars tv show, season 31. We, the Daily Moth, have been giving weekly recaps on Daniel’s journey all the way up until he entered the semi-finals last week when he was unfortunately eliminated. We reached out to Daniel for an interview related to his experience.
Daniel: Thank you for having me here. The last few days have felt strange. For all this time I’ve been on with Dancing with the Stars I’ve been kept so busy on a daily basis as I learned new dances and saw my dance partner Britt and Gabe, the three of us were together every day and that’s not the case anymore. Things just halted.
Renca: Right.
Daniel: But still, I feel content. I’m not sure if “content” is the right word, but I’m also grateful that I was able to be involved in this journey. It was life-changing and now it’s time to chill. (remove time stamp: 1:12 to 1:20) There’s only a week until the final, which we’ll go to and cheer everyone on, we’ll do some dancing too, but I have a couple days to just chill out a little.
Renca: Yeah, it’s nice to have that little break after having such a busy daily routine, now you can adjust to a different routine.
Daniel: Oh yeah.
Renca: So we all watched your weekly dances and I’m curious. In which area do you feel you were able to grow the most? It could be with your life, something personal, or something related to dancing? What do you think?
Daniel: I can’t just pick one. This experience changed me in many ways. I love dancing. And I’ve always wanted to learn to dance, you know I’d see dance videos on social media and I thought it would be cool to try myself. But this experience was truly competitive and immersive with technical names for different types of dance, so that changed my life and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s like therapy when you move your body. Sometimes I’d be having a hard day and I’d be able to release those emotions through dance. I learned something new from that. And when I met my partner Britt, I have never met anyone like her. She learned ASL and the two of us grew very close. We bonded as she learned a lot about Deaf culture and the Deaf community, and she was able to really understand us. Wow, it’s rare to see a partner like that. I’m so thankful I met Britt.
Renca: Very cool. So there are names for different dances, and oftentimes we do not know the specific dance names. We would describe the dance, yes, like “you know that dance with the slow move” or “with the shake”? We would describe those dances, but not name them. Even for myself, watching you every week, I learned new terminologies for the dance moves! I would be like oohh that’s what it’s called! I learned something new myself.
Daniel: Same here!
Renca: So out of all of your performances, which did you enjoy the most? I’m sure you have quite a few, but if you had to pick one, which dance did you most enjoy?
Daniel: The dance I enjoyed most would have to be the cha-cha. It’s a Latin dance and it’s very sexy the way you move your hips. That was new for me, learning my body could even do that. We trained on how to move our hips that way. It was awkward at first but the more I worked on it, the more I enjoyed it. Another one was our contemporary dance, the one where I signed. That was the first signing dance in Dancing with the Stars history, and what a great honor that was to do that. It’s all good memories looking back on all of the dances.
Renca: Absolutely. And related to you, Britt, and Gabe, did you face any challenges when it came to communication? Maybe any misunderstandings with what things meant? Obviously, when you dance with Brit, you have to make eye contact with her, but at the same time, you would need to look at Gabe and back again. Were there any challenges like that or was it smooth sailing?
Daniel: That’s a good question, I’m glad you asked. Thinking about it now, I can’t really think of any challenges in relation to our communication or our connection. It was incredible how quickly Britt was able to pick up on signing.
Renca: Right, right.
Daniel: Initially, I had Gabe by my side interpreting, but over time, he was able to fade back more as Britt and I were able to chat. Major kudos to Britt for that. Of course, there were some challenges when Britt would teach dances. There was some fumbling trying to figure out how to teach with both hands. She would show me what to do for the dance and sometimes a problem would come up when we were dancing together. Would I go this way or that way? The confusion would be on my face so she would step back, explain it, and then we try again. I think that was one challenge, but other than that, things were pretty smooth. Naturally, it’s challenging to learn a new dance and make sure I was on the right beat, but that’s all.
Renca: That’s neat. And after each dance, it would be time for the judges. So week by week, do you feel that the judges gave you a fair score based on your performance? Sometimes it feels like we get that Deaf pity mentality, but do you feel the judges scored you fairly?
Daniel: What I appreciate the most about the four Dancing with the Stars judges is that my Deafness didn’t make for an easy high score. No way, they gave me a hard time and they provided critique. If I made a mistake, or there were even times I missed a step, they were on me about it. And I like that, I appreciate that. It helped me improve because I loved their critique. I took it seriously and it allowed me to get better. Looking back on my first week of Dancing with the Stars compared to my final week, my dancing was leaps and bounds better. And it was because of that feedback so I’m thankful for that.
Renca: With you, Britt, and Gabe, you were always together from week to week and now that routine has changed. I’m curious what you think your friendship will look like moving forward, post-DWTS? Do you think your friendship will continue?
Daniel: Yes. When Britt and I were eliminated, we sat in our trailer feeling slumped and so bummed. I asked if we would see each other again and she responded, yes of course. I’m thinking I want to get involved with schools for the Deaf with accessible dance classes for Deaf students. Some might say that Deaf people can’t teach dance because they need to be able to hear the music. Through this experience, I can say that isn’t true. You don’t need to hear the music, you just need to figure out rhythm, speed, and timing when you’re moving your body. I know there are Deaf children out there who love that, so Britt and I discussed the possibility of going to Deaf schools to teach.
Renca: That’s cool!
Daniel: So the idea has come up, we’ll see what happens. But of course, we’re going to stay tight. We’ll be staying in touch. Britt wants to keep learning ASL, and she’s planning on asking our interpreter Gabe’s mom, who is Deaf, to teach her over Zoom so she can keep improving her ASL. We’re definitely going to stay close. And Gabe is just stuck with me wherever I go in the world to interpret for me whatever I do.
Renca: I saw your comment saying it was the first time in your life that people were able to hear your “voice” that was in such alignment with your personality and who you are. So you found that person for the first time. That made me think, huh, who is my “voice” I wonder?
Daniel: Yeah, I found Gabe after we had filmed CODA and we were going to different awards shows and events. I needed an interpreter and it wasn’t easy finding the right fit. When people would hear Gabe speaking, it was like an exact match to the way I signed, and our personalities are similar too because we’re the same age. We share a personality, we’re interested in the same things, we play video games together, and we do a lot together. It was surprising, but I’m thankful that the universe made Gabe and he was able to become one of my closest friends and my interpreter too. He’s great.
——--
[Sponsored video from Convo: www.convorelay.com]
—------
Renca: Thank you Daniel for your time. We did ask Daniel what his next step is. He told us that a special announcement would be made and would be announced during DWTS last night. So, we watched the DWTS finale as we were curious about what the special announcement was. We learned that Daniel will be one of the five celebrities that will participate in the DWTS tour around USA. The schedule of the tour is on the link provided on the transcript. The DWTS tour will start from January 2023 to March 2023. However, Daniel will not be there from the beginning to the end of the tour. He will join around February. The important thing here is that when you look at the schedule and see the five celebrities’ names- each celebrity has their assigned emoji. Daniel’s emoji is the ILY one. So, when you look at the schedule and see the dates, make sure you look for the ILY emoji because that means Daniel will be there. If you don’t see the ILY emoji then that means Daniel will not be there. Just make sure you look at that on the schedule- the link is provided in the transcript. We wish Daniel the best of luck with that tour.
Link to tour: https://www.dwtstour.com/