DEFY is a piece about smashing perceptions. It features a young hip-hop dancer, born profoundly deaf. Because of her loss of hearing, her world is focussed on the sense of touch. We see her walking through a very tactile warehouse space, running her hand across peeling paint.

As she walks, she’s introduced as Macy Baez, a dancer born profoundly deaf. You get the sense of a fighter entering a ring – something is about to happen. She puts down her Sony speaker on a patched together wooden floor and prepares to dance.

As the music hits, she explodes with movement. Filmed as a long continuous shot, you see that she is perfectly in time with the bass beat. She moves with strength and aggression.

The music warps, as we enter Macy’s perspective – a garbled, bass-driven world, where the floor ripples with sound. The music builds back up and we warp back out into full acoustic sound – Macy is in full flight. She finishes with a strong pose and nods defiantly to camera, knowing full-well she nailed the performance.

Rather than simply extolling the virtues of Sony’s new EXTRA BASS speakers, we used the launch as an opportunity to do something bigger; something authentic; something, which changed perceptions. The DEFY project was created to empower a young dancer, who was born profoundly deaf. We told Macy’s story, composed an original piece of music especially for her, with bass she could feel, and gave her a world stage to perform on – her own music video.