Disney re-animates songs from 'Encanto,' 'Moana 2,' 'Frozen 2' in sign language form
Get ready to experience the Disney magic in a whole new way as the company has re-animated some of their hit songs from movies such as Encanto, Moana 2, and Frozen II in sign language versions.
Disney teased some clips of the scenes with ABC News, showing characters like Moana, Mirabel, Pepa, Félix, and Anna using the American sign language to perform the songs for deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences.
The re-animated versions were helmed by veteran Disney animator and director Hyrum Osmond, in collaboration with artistic director DJ Kurs and sign language reference choreographer Catalene Sacchetti.
Osmond told the news outlet that he grew up with a deaf father, but that he never actually got to learn sign language.
"It was sort of a barrier to really connecting with my dad, and so to be able to do this project and to really kind of bring down those barriers between Disney and the Deaf community is pretty special," he said.
Sacchetti similarly beamed with pride at the project.
"This project means so much to me because the deaf community, deaf children, and the deaf world are always left behind or left last or is the last to know or never knows," she said through sign language.
"And so with this new generation of deaf children to be able to watch these songs in their language, for them to be able to internalize and connect to the emotion and the feeling of it means so much, and I'm honored and blessed that I'm of the generation that is able to witness this and be a part of it," she added.
In order to give justice to the choreography and performance of the songs, Osmond said that they had to redo all the scenes from scratch.
"What we did is we took the animation of these three songs and we re-did it. We reimagined the choreography, which brings us to our relationship with Deaf West Theatre. And just from scratch, most of what you'll see in these sequences and these songs has been fully re-animated," he explained.
The scenes can be watched through Disney+ starting on April 27, just in time for National Deaf History Month.