Connor Yuzwenko-Martin in Carbon Movements, SOUND OFF Festival of Deaf Theatre. Photo supplied.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Across the country, and the continent, there isn’t anything quite like the groundbreaker of a festival, born in this fair theatre town, that’s back for a seventh annual edition Tuesday.

SOUND OFF, Canada’s unique and influential national festival dedicated to Deaf performing arts, artists and their stories, gathers artists and companies from across the country, this year B.C. to Nova Scotia. And, in a model of accessibility, SOUND OFF welcomes both Deaf and hearing audiences to its seven mainstage performances, multiple workshops, staged readings, and panel discussions.

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The festival is the brainchild of multi-faceted Edmonton theatre artist Chris Dodd, who was the U of A’s first Deaf drama grad in 1998. We caught up with SOUND OFF’s engaging founder and artistic director, a playwright/ actor/ director/ activist/ mentor (Citadel audiences recently saw his dark and enlightening solo comedy Deafy), to find out more about the multidisciplinary, multilingual (ASL and English) six-day festivities.

This year’s “hybrid” edition of SOUND OFF includes both live in-person performances and online content, in shows, workshops, staged readings, panel discussions, talkbacks. There’s a striking variety of theatrical forms, from clowning to docu-drama, puppetry to improv to sketch comedy, in the line-up and a variety too of collaborations between Deaf and hearing artists. Has a theme emerged for 2023?

“It’s been an interesting mix of submissions for this festival…. last year we had a special focus on artists from Quebec, and we hosted our first performance in LSQ (the sign language of the Deaf in Quebec). This year, our focus is on dance. And we have two external venues for the first time, occupied by two different hearing and Deaf dance collaborations, Carbon Movements (at Mile Zero Dance) and When The Walls Come Down (at La Cité francophone).

As well we have another Deaf/hearing dance collaboration (Montreal-based) roots2reach, to lead a dance discussion workshop (Fringe Theatre’s Studio Theatre). All this, plus we have a panel with our Deaf and hearing artists to discuss their experiences and how they make art together as artists from different backgrounds.”

With its use of “vibrotactile elements” and its “tactile score,” Carbon Movements sounds like a wildly innovative dance experiment, starring Deaf artist Connor Yuzwenko-Martin of the collective The Invisible Practice (After Faust) for Deaf and hearing audiences. How does it work?

“Essentially we’ve taken the traditional dance performance and it on its head by removing the music and instead making a sensory experience that happens through vibration and the visual elements of the production. … It has a vibrotactile score created for us by Jim Ruxton and David Bobier of the VibraFusion Lab in Ontario… The vibration itself is channeled through a special material we selected through a painstaking elimination process; our Deaf dancer Connor Yuzwenko-Martin interacts with it. The show is the brainchild of local choreographer Ainsley Hillyard and it’s over two years in the making.”

Caroline Hebert in When The Walls Come Down, SOUND OFF Festival 2023. Photo supplied.

In When The Walls Come Down (performed live this year after an online iteration in 2022), hearing dancers join Deaf artist Caroline Hebert onstage, in a show that’s innovative in other ways (it features an animation from a five-member team of artists from Vancouver Film School). Can you explain how it works?

“It features two professional hearing dance artists from the Vancouver company Dance Novella, who have partnered with Vancouver Deaf artist Caroline Hebert. They’ve taken her personal story of struggles as a Deaf parent, and transformed it into a piece which centres on her experience and expresses it eloquently through dance.”

At This Hour, billed as “a doc-drama investigation into the causes of the Halifax explosion,” chronicles the collision of two ships in Halifax harbour in 1917, causing “the largest human made explosion before the atomic bomb.” In the production, a Deaf and a hearing cast perform simultaneously, using verbatim text to tell the story of the explosion. Is simultaneous performance something you’ve worked with before?

“I actually saw At This Hour in its original production in Halifax two years ago. By the time it was over, I knew I needed to bring it to the festival. It is a unique slice of East coast life and it focuses on a very tragic and important moment of maritime history. The show features three Deaf artists and three hearing artists, and they each interpret and complement each other. It’s a really fascinating thing to watch.”

The MaryRobin Show, SOUND OFF Festival 2023. Photo supplied.

The MaryRobin Show by and starring Elizabeth Morris and Hayley Hudson — online on demand (in ASL with English voiceover and captions ‚ is, as billed, a showcase of “comedy skits, ABC storytelling, visual vernacular, monologues, and dancing.” What’s “visual vernacular” ? “ABC storytelling”?

Visual vernacular is a specific style of Deaf performance that uses a cinema style to create the sense of watching a movie, but without the use of actual sign language. When done right, it’s an incredibly engaging and evocative way to tell a story without words. In ABC storytelling, an artists tells a story and uses all the hand shapes of the ABC alphabet, A through Z, and it’s up to the keen-eyed audience to catch them all!”

SOUND OFF’s Theatresports shows with Rapid Fire Theatre have teams of Deaf and hearing improvisers. And they’re a perennial hit with both hearing and Deaf audiences. How do they shake down?

“We try the level playing field…. We make language forbidden. This means actors can’t use spoken speech or sign language, and instead have to act out audience suggestions through their bodies alone. Even though the hearing artists from Rapid Fire are already experienced improvisors, I have always found our Deaf artists naturally excel at using their bodies for communicating…. Plus, we’re pretty damn hilarious too.”

Are more hearing people becoming aware of, and seeking out, Deaf artistry in the seven years since you started SOUND OFF?

“ASL interpretation is slowly becoming something of a norm in Edmonton, which I think is a fabulous thing. I have always said that access should be as normal as getting a drink from the bar before the show. When I first started this festival in 2017, I had to work hard to scrape together three different groups; there weren’t many Deaf artists at the time actively practising their art. Things have changed in leaps and bounds since then, and we now have a very strong community of Deaf artists who collaborate, mentor, and teach. And our community will only continue to grow from here.” 

SOUND OFF Deaf Theatre Festival 2023

Where: Backstage Theatre, Mile Zero Dance, La Cité francophone

Running: Tuesday through April 2

Tickets: fringetheatre.ca