Many of you will have seen our national anthem being signed on your screens at the recent Rugby World Cup. Now the spectacular event is over and I would like to share my experience being involved with this project in the last 2 - 3months.

Twenty-five Deaf people auditioned and ten sign singers were selected to perform at RWC matches: Renee Turipa, Janet Martin, Marianne Spence, Eric Matthews, Gabriella Orellana, Catherine Greenwood, Sonia Pivac, Miiria Storey, Marjorie Rako and myself. My job was to coordinate the team, coach the sign singers and lead them on match day; and communicate between the RWC committee, Deaf Aotearoa, sign singers and interpreters. We had a half day rehearsal on Saturday 10thSeptember (day after NZ vs Tonga match on 9th September) and afterwards, everyone felt excited.

Let’s imagine a typical routine on match day. A bus picked up the choir, sign singers and a NZSL interpreter at 4pm and took us to the stadium. The security people gave us a wristband to wear and we head to the field for a pre match rehearsal. After the rehearsal, I and two sign singers continued practising the NZSL national anthem. Approximately 20 minutes before kick off, we lined up outside the tunnel and walked on the field, looking smart. We waited for the players to run on field and for the music to start; then we signed the national anthem with pride. When it ended, we walked off the field and reflected how cool the experience was. We watched the haka before going inside. All of us were lucky to get a free ticket to watch a real live match. For some NATIONAL ANTHEM INNZSL AT RWC 2011by Darryl Alexander matches that were fully sold out, some of us watched the games either on TV in the dressing room or ran to the nearest pub.

It was truly an incredible once in a lifetime experience for us all, standing on the field with 80,000 to 120,000 eyes watching us sign live. Marianne, the youngest sign singer in the NZSL anthem team, said that “it was awesome night I ever had! I was nervous while standing on the field. I was like wow this is real RWC... Love it.” Eric said he “felt proud and strong knowing that hearing people watching deaf people sign the National Anthem” and Catherine said she “felt very privileged to sign sing the National Anthem during the World Cup, it was truly a memorable & thrilling experience being in a stadium of 60,000 people and the exposure of NZSL to these people was priceless”. There was a box inserted on screen showing me and Renee sign signing on Sky TV and Maori TV - approximately 2 million people in New Zealand watched the finals on screen. It was a marvellous opportunity to raise NZSL awareness during RWC and as one of our sign singers, Sonia, says, “to have the right to use NZSL at such an event shows how far we have come and will travel as a nation. Spread the love!”

There are people who I must thank for making this project happen. A big thank you to MSD for their support and Rachel Noble, the Chief Executive of Deaf Aotearoa, for trusting me coordinate this project. I would also like to thank members of Rachel’s team (Tony Blackett, Kathryn Heard, Daniel Harborne and Kate Browne) for their two months of support with numbers of phone calls, emails and Facebook messages. A special thanks to the sign singers for practising so hard and there are many others to thank. Marjorie Rako, one of the sign singers, sums this up:

“Many, many thanks go to Deaf Aotearoa for their wonderful support and hard work during RWC, our signing conductor, Darryl Alexander, TVNZ [TV One] for live subtitles throughout RWC and SkyTV for posting Deaf sign singers in a box for viewers to see, and IRB / RWC committee for giving Deaf community an opportunity to sign singing with the All Blacks”.