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Deaf Professional Arts Network

U.S. nonprofit organization

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ16989271 ↗
Source-derived summary

(D-PAN), is a 501(c)(3) national nonprofit organization based in Detroit, Michigan, founded by Sean Forbes and Joel Martin D-PAN creates music videos featuring deaf and hard-of-hearing performers. D-PAN is dedicated to promoting professional development and access to the entertainment, visual and media arts fields for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. Their first video for "Where'd You Go" by Fort Minor, with Sean Forbes and Rosina Switras, got hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. On October 28, 2011, D-PAN released their first new ASL music video in a couple years, "We're Going to be Friends" by the White Stripes. After an announcement on the White Stripes Facebook page, the video went viral, making the front page of Reddit, appearing on CBS News and was briefly shown and mentioned on the Today show on November 3, 2011.

The D-PAN staff consists of Joel Martin (co-founder), Scott Guy (executive director), Sean Forbes (co-founder and chief creative officer), Adrean Mangiardi (director of film) and Mark Levin (Tour, Event, Merchandise and Social Media Manager).

The D-PAN DVD compilation called It's Everybody's Music, volume 1 sold more than 10,000 copies. It includes:

John Mayer's "Waiting on the World to Change"

Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful"

Eminem's "Lose Yourself" performed by Sponge

Mini – Documentary "Signing Songs: Making of D-PAN Music Videos"

And more music videos from community performers.

D-PAN also produced a DVD titled Wee Hands Vol.1.

Editorial summary

“Deaf Professional Arts Network” enters the record as u.S. nonprofit organization. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Deaf, Professional and Arts can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2011—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Deaf, Professional and Arts.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Deaf Professional Arts Network” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Deaf, Professional and Arts provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16989271. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2011.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Deaf Professional Arts Network”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Deaf Professional Arts Network primary sources, Deaf Professional Arts Network archive and Deaf research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Deaf Professional Arts Network”?
  2. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Deaf Professional Arts Network” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.