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Brandon Kazen-Maddox has always felt an affinity with mermaids. “We both straddle two worlds,” said Mx. Kazen-Maddox, 36, an American Sign Language dancer, choreographer and filmmaker who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns.
Mx. Kazen-Maddox, like both their parents, is hearing. But they grew up living with their mother at her parents’ home in Washington State, where their maternal grandparents, both of whom are deaf, spoke with their hands.
Soon, Mx. Kazen-Maddox learned to do the same. “I like to say my words are just along for the ride,” they said.
Mx. Kazen-Maddox has been interpreting professionally since 2012 and has worked on the Broadway production of “Aladdin” and for former President Joe Biden, the composer Lin-Manuel Miranda and the actress Marlee Matlin.
In a half-hour PBS special scheduled for Tuesday, “SOUL(SIGNS): Making Music Visible,” Mx. Kazen-Maddox documented the process of choreographing, filming and performing an A.S.L. music video for Morgan James’s “Drown,” shedding light on their own relationship with music and sign language.
“I see a lot of A.S.L. as an afterthought or interpretation just thrown in,” they said, “and it ends up not doing service to the Deaf community.”
In 2020, Mx. Kazen-Maddox started the Up Until Now Collective with Kevin Newbury, a director and Mx. Kazen-Maddox’s partner of five years, and Jecca Barry, a producer. The collective, whose projects include “SOUL (SIGNS),” has a multidisciplinary focus on inclusive storytelling.
As a person who yo-yos between various projects, Mx. Kazen-Maddox loves having a home base in a cozy duplex on the Upper West Side of Manhattan along the Hudson River, where they live with Mr. Newbury, 47, and more than a dozen plants.
“My Sunday is essentially five lives in a day,” they said.
Mx. Kazen-Maddox wakes up at 8 a.m. and tries to avoid using an alarm. They like to put on Spotify and play healing, meditative sound bowls when they’re in the shower. They also meditate while getting a mud massage at the Russian & Turkish Baths in the East Village.
I go to Joe & Pat’s, which is just around the corner, and order a cauliflower crust pizza. They have this amazing broccoli rabe, and I put that on the pizza, which is red sauce and pepperoni. And then I put their cheesy Alfredo sauce on top of it all.
I might go to this Japanese place called Ramen Takumi, which is at the northeast corner of Washington Square Park. The Steinhardt roll is my favorite. I love that area, which is very much a home base for me — when I was at school at N.Y.U., I would always be around Washington Square Park and walking through the Village.
At 2 p.m., I head to Club Cumming for a rehearsal for a performance we’re doing on April 15, the day my PBS special airs. We’re going to have a public screening of “SOUL(SIGNS).” Then we’re creating a show called “SOUL(SIGNS): 3X3X3” which is all about Nina Simone’s music.
It’s on to another rehearsal at 4 p.m., this one at One Day One in Dumbo with my aerial hoop coach, New York Cat. I started writing a theatrical production of American Sign Language dance theater called (FREEDOM), which is basically my story: It’s about a Black queer child raised in a white deaf family.
I get home around 6:30 and cook dinner with food that Kevin picked up from Westside Market, our favorite market. Their Portuguese kale soup is phenomenal.
Kevin and I wind down by watching a movie recommended by “The Queer Film Guide” by Kyle Turner. It’s this cool book that goes through all these movies that you may or may not have thought have anything to do with queerness — like “The Fly,” for example. Who knew? If it’s nice, we’ll bring our projector up and watch it upstairs on the roof.
After the movie, Kevin and I will cuddle up next to each other and read our books. Right now, I’m reading “Fourth Wing” by Rebecca Yarros, and it is so good. Those are the kinds of books that I love, fantasy with blends of strong reality.
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