About Michikazu Matsune's ZEICHENSTURM
ZEICHENSTURM deals with a minority whose members can be found across all social classes, who are facing the same problems internationally and see themselves confronted all over the world by a very similar form of discrimination, isolation and the same prejudices. This minority is not only in legal, as well as educational-political isolation, but also in isolation towards the social environment it was born into. The members of this minority are simplistically called “deaf-mute” in everyday speech; correctly speaking, they are “deaf”, but, as ZEICHENSTURM proves with playful ease, far from “mute”.
From a medial point of view, deafness is diagnosed when the respective person has a hearing impairment of more than 90 dB. One in every one thousand Austrians is born deaf or will go deaf over the course of their lives. Approximately 8-10,000 deaf people are living in Austria. Most of them consider the Austrian Sign Language (ASL) their mother tongue; they identify with this language, they are identified by others through this language, they master and use it in their everyday environment – which fulfils the essential criteria of a mother tongue. Nevertheless, in Austria the ASL has only been legally recognised as a language in its own right since 2005. In other countries, this recognition was achieved several years earlier, which is causing discrepancies, even within Europe, regarding the (legal) value of the language and, consequently, also the status of the deaf.
Sign languages are visual languages consisting of combined signs formed primarily by the hands, in combination with facial and mouth expressions and in relation to the respective posture. There is no worldwide uniform sign language, but many national and regional forms. In Austria, every province has its own sign language dialect. The sign language is the most natural first language of deaf people; the spoken, and (national) written lanaguage respectively, is their second language, because unlike hearing persons, they are unable to deduce the written from the spoken language. Like all other sign languages, the Austrian Sign Language also constitutes a fully fledged language system with its own grammatical structure, and it is closely connected to the culture of the deaf communities from which it emerged. Deaf communities are usually well organised which is why there are many associations and unions in Austria which are very strongly connected with each other.
This strong connectedness through, and the intensive use of, social networking plaforms like Facebook or Twitter creates an, also supraregionally, heightened sense of togetherness within the community and facilitates a quick, comprehensive exchange of information, which also helped ZEICHENSTURM gain great interest and a huge audience response within only a short period of time.
Together with deaf people from Austria, France, China and Nigeria, as well as local sign language interpreters, Michikazu Matsune develops scenes which, on the one hand, analyse and playfully expose the performative potential of sign language and, on the other, create a sensitive, sensuous experience equally for those who can hear and those who cannot without ever exposing or even discriminating against the deaf performers. Sign language and the sensuous possibilities of experiencing deafness are at every moment of the 85-minute performance not only an essential foundation of the performative experience, but a crucial aditional value for everyone involved. On a further level, the precarious and dangerous situtation of deaf people before and during the Second World War is debated with the help of interviews with deaf contemporary witnesses and survivors of National Socialism, while at the same time the theme of “deafness as disability“ , which under National Socialism was a common and, precisely because it was common, dangerous way of thinking, is also discussed under this aspect.
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ZEICHENSTURM begins with two deaf performers welcoming the audience in sign language. This welcoming speech is translated into written language on screens suspended above the performers. The welcoming soon stops serving its original purpose and instead becomes a loose, self-repeating, partly associative, but in any case humorous exchange of words which, on the one hand, serves as an introduction to the methodology of sign language, while also presenting it as an entirely independent language; because signed words, while sometimes evoking associations to written ones, in no way reproduce them as a sort of pantomime. In this case, of importance is also the aspect that written language here is not translated into sign language, but the other way round. The point of departure – and this is the central motif of the entire evening – is the sign language and the meanings and movements created by it. The written language merely serves the purpose of translation – of transcribing a language that is alien to parts of the audience.
After this short introduction, which on a visual level introduces the audience to the world of signs, a drum & bass track with heavy basslines blasts out into the room, making the stage tremble and punching the audience right in the gut. The hearing members of the audience were given earplugs before the start of the performance and now get to know the world of deafness on a further sensory level. However, also for those who cannot hear this scene, with its beautifully designed visuals on the screens, also provides a deeply sensuous and, at the same time, physical experience.
This acoustic/physical scene is followed by sign language clips from a news broadcast of the platform for deaf people, signtime.tv. However, these are not translated for the hearing audience. Referring to current topics of everyday politics, these video clips are the usual source of information for some parts of the audience, while for others they represent a confrontation with a foreign language whose spoken content they can only vaguely make out with the help of short headlines.
At several points during the performance, as in the scene that comes afterwards, interviews with deaf people, dubbed live by sign language interpreters, are shown via video. In these documentary video sequences, they tell of experiences which, directly or indirectly, reflect or sketch the life as a deaf person during the NS regime in Austria. These accounts open up an entirely new, political level of meaning dealing with a very sad chapter not only in their personal histories, but also in the history of the whole of Europe. Nevertheless, one is intrigued and moved by the ease and unbroken, life-affirming happiness these people convey while telling their stories.
Two highlights of ZEICHENSTURM include a video clip in which the famous lyrics of Michael Jackson’s Black or White are translated into sign language and a cover of Sha’s pop song, Jaja, performed live by a deaf choir. Both scenes illustrate the performative, and above all also the poetic, potential of sign language in a light-hearted, humorous and captivating way. Jackson’s dance moves start interacting with the speech movements of the performers and the signed song line, “scheiß, scheiß baby”, from Sha’s Jaja burns itself into the audience’s memory, much like a catchy tune in the figurative sense. In between, the performers show their astonishing, for them only natural feel for rhythm during enthusiastically performed hip-hop dance interludes or during a drumming session on kitchen utensils. Everyday set phrases, such as “time is money” or “love is blind”, are translated into sign language, as are the names of countries, film titles, abstract terms (e.g. “future vision” or “high definition”) or culinary specialities (e.g. “Tiroler Gröstel” or “Wiener Schnitzel”).
After a weather report, which is translated into spoken language and forecasts the most beautiful weather Europe has seen in years, the shock wave of a massive rolling thunder makes the seating rows tremble once again. Followed by lightning and gusts of wind, a thunderstorm rages through the room, in which the haptic element surpasses the acoustic one in intensity, getting stronger and stronger, until suddenly it starts snowing above the audience, quietly and softly. ZEICHENSTURM ends with the audience covered in white, and with a talk show in sign language, simultaneously translated into spoken language, in which two performers talk about matters characterising everyday life as a deaf person. Gossiping on the talk show couch via the Skype app for the new iPhone G4 or discussing how best to call a cab. The final words of the evening belong to a deaf woman who in the last video describes how, for her, the red of the setting sun starts splashing ever more loudly the closer it gets to the horizon.
ZEICHENSTURM is a deeply sensuous experience which, entirely without demanding pity, without stimulating passion, without cheap sensationalism, gives a minority the chance to be themselves, and proud of it. ZEICHENSTURM does without the Aha! effect explaining to the audience what it feels like to be deaf, instead demanding and promoting a further examaniation of the theme, while also encouraging an intellectual-political exchange among the audience. ZEICHENSTURM is an example of barrier-free theatre offering both, hearing and deaf audiences, a varied, intense and humorous exercise in togetherness.
Andreas Fleck / brut Wien
February 2011