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It’s hard enough work for a director to see a show through the eyes of its audience.
For her new production of Noise, Jamie Dunsdon was forced to see it through two distinctly different perspectives: those who can hear, and those who can’t.
That’s because the multimedia show, created in conjunction with a cast that includes three deaf people, tells the story of a nightclub DJ who has lost his hearing.
The question is how to present Noise, which opens Thursday at the Big Secret Theatre in Epcor Centre, in a way that makes it as immediate for deaf audiences as it (hopefully) is for hearing ones.
“(The challenge we face is) how to make an experience rich and not as if it’s been put through a filter?” Dunsdon says, “through closed captioning, signing (and things like that). How do you present the experience unfiltered?”
To get into the correct frame of mind, Dunsdon has used various techniques to eliminate sound from her experience with the play.
“We’ll try scenes without sound or dialogue,” she says. “(Or) I’ll wear noise cancelling headphones to block out audio information to see how it feels.
“In a way,” she adds, “it’s akin to directing a silent film — but it’s also a musical.”
For Dunsdon, some of the solutions to communicating Noise lie in the different tools theatre uses to tell a story.
“A lot (of Noise) is (also) told through actors’ bodies,” she says, “sort of the same way you might do it in a silent movie.
“There’s also projection. Visual aspects of the story do as much communicating as the music does.
“When you consider the music, projection and actors and dancers and interpreters (in Noise),” she adds, “if there was ever such a thing as a multidisciplinary show, this is it.”
The show arose out of a proposed production of Romeo and Juliet for the deaf that never actually came to fruition a few years back.
While that show didn’t happen, the idea of creating theatre that could communicate to deaf people stuck with Dunsdon, who, together with Verb Theatre co-artistic director Col Cseke, have created some of the more unconventional, and engaging Calgary theatrical experiences of the past few years.
One of those was Oedipus Evolving, a 2010 multimedia production of the Greek classic that was performed by a group of homeless actors.
Another was Marg Szkaluba (Pissy’s Wife), which starred Calgary theatre icon Sharon Pollock and was performed at the Ironwood Bar and Grill. A third was Jim Forgetting, Cseke’s drama about a man afflicted with early onset Alzheimer’s.
“Col and I have a very strong idea of what a Verb show is,” Dunsdon says. “It’s to tell stories that haven’t been told before, in ways that haven’t been told.”
Often, that includes cast members, such as the trio of deaf performers in Noise, who come from the world of the stories Verb tells.
“It’s community interactive theatre,” Dunsdon says. “It’s super important to us that communities we’re talking about have a voice our shows,” she adds. “There’s something really inspiring about bringing those communities into the process.”
That crossover relationship has also proved to be illuminating for the show’s music director — and Calgary’s 2012 Poet Laureate — Kris Demeanor.
“It’s amazing on a lot of levels,” Demeanor says. “It’s interesting to be in your adult life and realize there’s a part of society you haven’t had direct and meaningful contact with (before). It’s been fascinating to get to know these performers.”
If Demeanor learned one thing in creating a soundscape for Noise, it was that there are more ways to experience music than simply hearing it.
“From the musical standpoint,” he says, “we asked flat out: how do you experience music (as a deaf person)?
“They said you need to make it loud. We need to feel it. You feel it in your bodies — that visceral experience.
“But you can’t put a sub-woofer under every chair,” he adds. “The physical way (of experiencing a song) is one way, but also in every song ... the emotional and lyrical content of a song is something they can appreciate (as well).”
To get a sense of how deaf people experience music, Demeanor showed them a video of Christina Aguilera’s Beautiful.
“They enjoyed experiencing the lyrics,” he says, “the passion on the face of the performers, the dynamics of the tempo, They had almost an ability to piece together a song (without hearing the melody).
“That allowed us to realize,” he says, “that not every song needs big pulsing rhythm (for a deaf person to enjoy it).”
All that said, Dunsdon describes Noise as a show about the opposite of deafness.
“The show isn’t about deafness,” she says. “Its about noise in Calgary in 2012. I’ve been inspired by the city.”
And no matter what happens, it’s Verb Theatre’s latest venture into creating new work, something this city has become a hotbed of.
Not that that makes creating something new any less scary.
“It’s terrifying, to be honest,” she says. “I’m having a blast, but it is also a big experiment.”
---
Art space is always tight in the city, but thanks to the joint efforts of Storybook Theatre and the Front Row Centre Players, there’s a new one.
It’s a 200 seat venue in northwest Calgary, at the New Beddington Heights Community Arts Centre.
Working in unison with the Beddington Heights Community Association, they’ve given the community centre a do-over, transforming it into a multi-use arts centre and bringing sustainability to the centre, which also offers before and after care, Arabic language classes, cooking lessons, kids karate camps, three churches, outdoor skating — and more to the point, a new Storybook holiday show.
It’s White Christmas, and it opens Friday, November 23 and runs through December 16. But even before you see that, it sounds like a happy ending for a couple of the city’s leading community theatre companies. For more info, go to: storybooktheatre.org.
Verb Theatre presents Noise at the Big Secret Theatre through December 2. Details at verbtheatre.com
Read more: Theatre group presents show through the ears of the deaf
For her new production of Noise, Jamie Dunsdon was forced to see it through two distinctly different perspectives: those who can hear, and those who can’t.
That’s because the multimedia show, created in conjunction with a cast that includes three deaf people, tells the story of a nightclub DJ who has lost his hearing.
The question is how to present Noise, which opens Thursday at the Big Secret Theatre in Epcor Centre, in a way that makes it as immediate for deaf audiences as it (hopefully) is for hearing ones.
“(The challenge we face is) how to make an experience rich and not as if it’s been put through a filter?” Dunsdon says, “through closed captioning, signing (and things like that). How do you present the experience unfiltered?”
To get into the correct frame of mind, Dunsdon has used various techniques to eliminate sound from her experience with the play.
“We’ll try scenes without sound or dialogue,” she says. “(Or) I’ll wear noise cancelling headphones to block out audio information to see how it feels.
“In a way,” she adds, “it’s akin to directing a silent film — but it’s also a musical.”
For Dunsdon, some of the solutions to communicating Noise lie in the different tools theatre uses to tell a story.
“A lot (of Noise) is (also) told through actors’ bodies,” she says, “sort of the same way you might do it in a silent movie.
“There’s also projection. Visual aspects of the story do as much communicating as the music does.
“When you consider the music, projection and actors and dancers and interpreters (in Noise),” she adds, “if there was ever such a thing as a multidisciplinary show, this is it.”
The show arose out of a proposed production of Romeo and Juliet for the deaf that never actually came to fruition a few years back.
While that show didn’t happen, the idea of creating theatre that could communicate to deaf people stuck with Dunsdon, who, together with Verb Theatre co-artistic director Col Cseke, have created some of the more unconventional, and engaging Calgary theatrical experiences of the past few years.
One of those was Oedipus Evolving, a 2010 multimedia production of the Greek classic that was performed by a group of homeless actors.
Another was Marg Szkaluba (Pissy’s Wife), which starred Calgary theatre icon Sharon Pollock and was performed at the Ironwood Bar and Grill. A third was Jim Forgetting, Cseke’s drama about a man afflicted with early onset Alzheimer’s.
“Col and I have a very strong idea of what a Verb show is,” Dunsdon says. “It’s to tell stories that haven’t been told before, in ways that haven’t been told.”
Often, that includes cast members, such as the trio of deaf performers in Noise, who come from the world of the stories Verb tells.
“It’s community interactive theatre,” Dunsdon says. “It’s super important to us that communities we’re talking about have a voice our shows,” she adds. “There’s something really inspiring about bringing those communities into the process.”
That crossover relationship has also proved to be illuminating for the show’s music director — and Calgary’s 2012 Poet Laureate — Kris Demeanor.
“It’s amazing on a lot of levels,” Demeanor says. “It’s interesting to be in your adult life and realize there’s a part of society you haven’t had direct and meaningful contact with (before). It’s been fascinating to get to know these performers.”
If Demeanor learned one thing in creating a soundscape for Noise, it was that there are more ways to experience music than simply hearing it.
“From the musical standpoint,” he says, “we asked flat out: how do you experience music (as a deaf person)?
“They said you need to make it loud. We need to feel it. You feel it in your bodies — that visceral experience.
“But you can’t put a sub-woofer under every chair,” he adds. “The physical way (of experiencing a song) is one way, but also in every song ... the emotional and lyrical content of a song is something they can appreciate (as well).”
To get a sense of how deaf people experience music, Demeanor showed them a video of Christina Aguilera’s Beautiful.
“They enjoyed experiencing the lyrics,” he says, “the passion on the face of the performers, the dynamics of the tempo, They had almost an ability to piece together a song (without hearing the melody).
“That allowed us to realize,” he says, “that not every song needs big pulsing rhythm (for a deaf person to enjoy it).”
All that said, Dunsdon describes Noise as a show about the opposite of deafness.
“The show isn’t about deafness,” she says. “Its about noise in Calgary in 2012. I’ve been inspired by the city.”
And no matter what happens, it’s Verb Theatre’s latest venture into creating new work, something this city has become a hotbed of.
Not that that makes creating something new any less scary.
“It’s terrifying, to be honest,” she says. “I’m having a blast, but it is also a big experiment.”
---
Art space is always tight in the city, but thanks to the joint efforts of Storybook Theatre and the Front Row Centre Players, there’s a new one.
It’s a 200 seat venue in northwest Calgary, at the New Beddington Heights Community Arts Centre.
Working in unison with the Beddington Heights Community Association, they’ve given the community centre a do-over, transforming it into a multi-use arts centre and bringing sustainability to the centre, which also offers before and after care, Arabic language classes, cooking lessons, kids karate camps, three churches, outdoor skating — and more to the point, a new Storybook holiday show.
It’s White Christmas, and it opens Friday, November 23 and runs through December 16. But even before you see that, it sounds like a happy ending for a couple of the city’s leading community theatre companies. For more info, go to: storybooktheatre.org.
Verb Theatre presents Noise at the Big Secret Theatre through December 2. Details at verbtheatre.com
Read more: Theatre group presents show through the ears of the deaf