Rathskellar was a seed of an idea in 1998 when founder Jonathan Hall Kovacs thought to showcase the raw beauty of sign language by combining it with visual arts and pulsating music. A group was formed, and as they rehearsed for weeks, they discovered themselves creating out of an art form that continued to stretch with their imagination, with Kovacs adding percussion, dancing, folklore, and mime to the experiment. The creation has evolved into the visual stunner that is Rathskellar today.
The performance group's first road performance in New Jersey was so acclaimed that it parlayed into their first international appearance in Toronto and Windsor, Canada. Their overseas debut came in 2001 when they traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark and since then Rathskellar has visit Germany, France, Sweden, Holland, and all corners of the U.S. Altogether, Rathskellar has performed in front of over 50,000 people across the globe for audiences of all ages and all levels of exposure to sign language, and the demand continues to grow!
Rathskellar draws its name from the student cafe of the same name at Gallaudet University, the world's only college for the deaf, which has its heyday in the 1970s as a highly meeting place for students from all over America as well as far away lands. United by their love for deaf culture, the cafe often staged presentations of ASL poetry, mime, and the unique A-to-Z hand alphabet stories. Rathskellar commemorates the cultural vibrancy that exist within these walls.
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