As a strategy to enable each student to have a varied experience working with David and Ciara with the medium of performance, and Caroline with the medium of autobiographical film, we split the group in two and alternated weekly sessions. Ciara and David worked with students to create a visual language, the ‘visual vernacular’ used by David in performance, and seen at the Letters, Signs and Songs event at the Globe in September.
Through using this mode of performance we are making a piece of ‘theatre without words’ that the students at Deir El Balah will be able to understand as it transpires language and hearing barriers.
All of the students, who in some way experience their own barriers to communication, were intrigued and impressed by David’s ‘VV’ performances, and generally through his use of British Sign Language. Whilst the group struggled to relate directly to their peers in Gaza, having no tangible form of exchange, through David’s involvement in the project and his inspiring teachings, in many ways we had become more directly engaged with Deir El Balah students than we had hoped for.
College Park students created their own visual vernacular to animate their poem ‘Take a Journey with Me’. David taught the group that visual vernacular is an interpretive and expressive form of physical theatre, movement and sign language. He taught the group that they are the painters and there is no wrong way to paint your picture. Each student painted their own picture using a different line from the poem for their palette.
Caroline joined us at the end of the term to film the results.
Selected students recorded the speaking of the poem, to be used in the final film, along with subtitles in Arabic.
The poem, beautiful as a stand alone piece, brought to life by the visual vernacular will make an impressive gift to be sent to our friends in Gaza. Caroline is currently editing the film and we hope to share it with College Park early in the new year.