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Off the Clock - Missouri Program Nurtures Traditional Arts, and ASL as Art Form

Seth Bodine
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KBIA

Missouri has one of the oldest trditional arts apprecticeship programs in the United States. And every year, the Missouri Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program sponsors eight master artists and their apprentices - for teaching, sustaining and promoting a tranditional art form - here in Missouri. 

KBIA's Seth Bodine caught up with one of this year's master-apprentice duos to find out about a classical Indian dance being practiced here in the middle of Misouri: Bharatanatyam. 

Also on this edition - Producer Kassidy Arena explores the increasing popularity of American Sign Language, or ASL, as a foreign language option among college students, but finds that ASL is not always part of the deaf experience.

Credit Kassidy Arena / KBIA
/
KBIA

Arena caught up with MU sophomore Sammie Davidson, who is deaf but doesn't feel she needs to learn ASL.

CORRECTION: The audio version of this post has been updated to remove an inaccurate statistic on the numbers of Americans impacted by hearing loss.   

Janet Saidi is a producer and professor at KBIA and the Missouri School of Journalism.
Kassidy Arena was the Engagement Producer for KBIA from 2022-2023. In her role, she reported and produced stories highlighting underrepresented communities, focused on community outreach and promoting media literacy. She was born in Berkeley, California, raised in Omaha, Nebraska and graduated with a degree in Journalism at the University of Missouri, Columbia.