A fascinating conversation when Joanna O. who volunteered to translate the play into Polish, asked me about this line:
ANNA
The first fear came out of the blue, over water—
Joanna asked:
what blue? the mood? or literally? sometimes these lines come all of the sudden, out of context, that i feel slightly confused
and my answer:
sure, it can be confusing, they come out of context so that it feels like these different characters all experienced the confusion at the same time. sometimes they understand it, sometimes they don’t, but they are all feeling the same kind of limbo.
in the case of “blue” , however, it can translate to “out of nowhere” — out of the blue is an expression shortened from “out of the clear blue sky” meaning that it came suddenly. is there another expression in polish that has a stronger meaning than just came suddenly? it doesn’t have to translate literally in this case.
This interpretation came up with our Deaf West co-production, too, especially since ASL uses fewer words than we do and the repetition that I use as a device in the play doesn’t work the same way in ASL.
I remember that we had an entire conversation about a line that the Nurse says to a woman whose husband is about to die from acute radiation poisoning: “You are sitting next to a reactor.” To a hearing audience, that means (in the context of the play) ‘You might as well just sit next to the Chernobyl reactor as sit next to your husband; he is just as radioactive and contagious.”
For the ASL audience, our Voice said the line as is but Catherine, our deaf actress, signed “He is very contagious.”
That kept reminding me of a line I heard in Eastern Europe: “All wars are due to bad translation.”
That’s really what made me want to learn ASL. Once I mentioned that to my cast, half of them immediately signed up, along with Amy Hendrickson, the understudy, and two of our audience members! Caitie Hannon, my assistant director for the whole festival, hooked us up with Sonya Wilson, who is a fabulous instructor in ASL. We learn deaf culture as well as signing. It is more fun and eye-opening and TIRING than most things I have tried so far.
I also learned another valuable lesson: when collaborating so that your project can reach a deaf audience, add closed captioning into everything. It seems obvious, but it isn’t something we think about because WE don’t have to. By simply adding closed captioning, you can reach even more people, and hopefully earn their respect as well. Enci, who is heavily involved with Chornobyl but who also is filming a short film this summer (Rebel Without a Car Productions), has insisted on the closed captioning for not only her film, but also for the documentaries leading up to the filming.
Just fascinating new ways of looking at the world.
Here is a joint proposal between the VOICES team and the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council—looking for artists to participate! Email for more information:
PROPOSAL
for
VOICES FROM EAST HOLLYWOOD:
Autobiography of a Neighborhood
Dear Ms. Abeyta and Mr. Miller,
VOICES FROM EAST HOLLYWOOD will connect the neighborhood council with the people who live there, thus narrowing the focus of the neighborhood council by going to directly to the source. Now, some members feel they are imposing their vision onto this neighborhood instead of deriving their vision from voices within the neighborhood.
The East Hollywood Neighborhood Council has invited the creators of VOICES FROM CHORNOBYL to participate in a lengthy partnership that would regularly culminate in opening the council’s doors to a symposium with the people-and specifically children-who live there.
VOICES FROM CHORNOBYL is a play that has been running in various locations in Los Angeles since early 2006—the piece breathes life into real peoples’ stories in an accessible way to any audience. It creates a narrative out of transcripts of about fifty interviews and creates a cohesive story.
Why is it such a powerful experience? The key is that the play is taken from actual words from real people - derived from the experiences of witnesses to the event. We will use a similar process to creating VOICES FROM CHORNOBYL in East Hollywood and share our work and transcripts with the Easy Hollywood Neighborhood Council.
The Fluxus show at Barnsdall would jumpstart this long term project that shows how art can change your part of the world, your neighborhood. Part of the reason that art is dying in low to middle income neighborhoods is because it loses relevance. Using art as an agent of change will not only fling open many doors to the community’s governing bodies, but also bring the neighborhood to the exhibit and in many cases serve as a resident’s first introduction to live art. We believe this first experience will stick because instead of art reflecting life, it is art integrated with life.
How will this all happen?
We will put out all the web media and let people take it in any direction they want. We will present a series of questions and various methods of submitting your answers—school essay and art contests, teaming up with local filmmakers to do “Man on the street” interviews, facebook posts/pictures/videos. Residents can submit a song, a poem, a picture, essay, blogging—we will partner with local businesses for open mic nights and schoolteachers to be sure the students are represented. The only restriction is that you must be currently living in East Hollywood.
An idea of the questions to springboard submissions would be:
~What do you see when you look outside your windows?
~If you could have anything in the world, what would you want in your neighborhood?
~How would you like your neighborhood to change?
This will give the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council a beginning database for focusing our neighborhood’s vision.
There are opportunities for either a rotating or permanent exhibit of our submissions that could change weekly, depending on space.
By intersecting VOICES FROM CHORNOBYL and VOICES FROM EAST HOLLYWOOD, we will hand the story-the plot of the neighborhood’s improvements-to the people living in the settings. Starting a political dialogue has been difficult in East Hollywood; a major challenge to the neighborhood council is bridging the gap between residents and their government, where they can have a voice. A major challenge to live art is relevance–creating an environment in which anyone can participate and understand the different avenues through which they can channel their voice. We feel it is an ideal match.
