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Benjamin Yonattan said on Tuesday’s “America’s Got Talent” that he wants to be known as more than a “blind dancer,” and his routine certainly helped accomplish that. Check out the video below!
As Gossip Cop reported during the audition round, the 14-year-old dancer’s eyesight is failing. In fact, he revealed now that “since my last audition, my eyesight has decreased to a pinhole.” Tasked with performing live on the Radio City Music Hall stage for the first time, Yonattan opted not to wear his medical glasses, explaining, “I lost so much vision to this point, the glasses don’t help me. Now more than ever, I need to fill the space and know where the stage ends. Because I want to succeed as a dancer, not a blind dancer.”
Yonattan’s performance seemed to go off without a hitch, and he couldn’t have chosen a more poignant song. The teen danced to Boyce Avenune’s” One Life,” which has the lyrics, “Open your eyes/And know you’re free to come alive/You gotta live it while you can/We only get one life.” It all culminated in a standing ovation from Howie Mandel, Mel B, and Heidi Klum.
Klum kicked off the feedback, saying, “You’re not letting your vision define you. Your talent speaks for itself, and I love it.” Mel B noted, “I have to say, I think that was your best dance thus far. I don’t know if you’ve been rehearsing more, but your technique was so much better this time… Everything about that dance was perfect. You truly are amazing,” added the Spice Girl.
And Mandel told Yonattan, “This is bigger than you. You’re 14 years old…. You took the stage…. You’re just so inspiring. So many obstacles against you. It’s a bigger contest for you than ‘America’s Got Talent.’ It’s life.” But while Howard Stern agreed on the contestant’s “inspiring” nature, he feared that Yonattan was at a disadvantage because, unlike the other dance acts in the competition, it’s seemingly harder for his routines to “progress” because he can’t see.
Check out the full video below. TELL US: Do you agree with Stern, or the rest of the judges?
