Sign language as both access and aesthetic strategy for a hearing audience
Master's Thesis
Table of Content
Chapter 1 Introduction... 3
Chapter 2 Deaf Gain--bridging the hearing and Deaf culture...9
2.1 a brief overview of how deafness was perceived in history...9
2.2 Deaf Studies and "Deaf Gain"... 13
2.3 Deaf music practices--mutual access between the two cultures...15
Chapter 3 Deaf West's bilingual musical theatre--sign language as both access and aesthetic strategy... 19
3.1 an overview of Deaf West's bilingual musical theatre...19
3.2 "bilingual"--sign language as access... 21
3.3 sign language as aesthetic strategy... 23
3.3.1 the shadowing technique... 24
3.3.2 sign language incorporated into the music and choreography...25
Chapter 4 Challenging the body-voice relation in musical theatre...27
4.1 new elements to the current discussion on body-voice gap...27
4.1.1 musical theatre and opera--two different genres...27
4.1.2 literature reviews on body-voice gap and new questions to address...30
4.2 the heightened role of body and body movements...34
4.2.1 literature on body and body movement in musical performance ...34
4.2.2 sign language as expressive gestures ...38
Chapter 5 Sign language--a rich medium for poetic image and metaphor...42
5.1 Iconicity and metaphorical iconicity in sign language...42
5.2 signed poetry--representation of poetic image ...45
5.2.1 metaphors work differently in signed and spoken languages...46
5.2.2 metaphorical elements activated in a poetic context...47
5.2.3 Example: The Door... 48
Chapter 6 Case study--Spring Awakening...52
6.1 considerations of the production team to incorporate sign language...52
6.1.1 Choreography... 52
6.1.2 Storyline... 53
6.1.3 Style of the text... 54
6.2 analysis ... 54
6.2.1 Musical number: The Bitch of Living...54
6.2.2 Musical number: "The Word of Your Body"...57
Chapter 7 Conclusion and further research... 63
Chapter 1 Introduction
Deafness and musical theatre may not seem to be a likely pair for some people, for it is often assumed that a musical theatre experience requires the audience to hear the music that is performed. Thus musical theatre for a long time has been an art form appearing to be exclusive for hearing people, and the talents of Deaf performers remained unnoticed.1 In late 1950s, a Broadway production called The Miracle Worker, a story about Helen Keller who was born deaf and blind, first included Deaf
performers and sign language in the performance.2 After the success of this Broadway
show, a group of experts who were involved in the production were captivated by the idea that sign language, a beautiful and highly expressive visual language, goes perfectly well with musical theatre as a part of the art form, and began to look for funding for a professional Deaf theatre company. In 1967, they created National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD), which was the first professional Deaf theatre company.3
By incorporating sign language into the performance, their productions aim to bring musical theatre into the Deaf community. Since then, Deaf performers and sign language have gained a place in musical theatre.
Deaf West theatre, founded in Log Angeles in 1991, is by far one of the most successful companies in this field. In Deaf West theatrical productions, Deaf cultural issues are usually an essential part of the plot and theme of the story. The entire show is performed in spoken and signed languages simultaneously, catering for both hearing and Deaf audiences. It provides access for Deaf audience to musical theatre, and at the same time allows hearing audience to have a better understanding of Deaf culture and the Deaf way of perceiving the world, especially those who have a culturally "biased" view on Deafness and still regard it as merely a disability. This cultural "bias" exists not only among the public, but also in academic fields, especially music dominant domains. Some works in opera studies, for example, show
1 In this thesis I use the capital "D" Deaf to refer to people who are culturally Deaf and use sign language, and lowercase "d" deaf when I refer to deafness in general (including deaf people who are culturally hearing). A further explanation of this distinction will be shown in chapter 2.
2 "ABOUT The National Theatre of the Deaf," National Theatre of the Deaf History, accessed July 06, 2018, http://www.ntd.org/ntd_about.html.
this bias as the scholars unintentionally imply that music can only be perceived through hearing and expressed through audible sound, and the word "deafness" is used when referring to situations when the sound is not heard. With spoken/sung word and sign performed simultaneously, Deaf West performance places equal importance on the two cultures and languages and tends to avoid this bias.
My research explores what Deaf West bilingual (spoken/signed) musical theatre has to offer to the hearing audience, and how it sheds new light on the current studies in music domains concerning the body-voice relation by incorporating sign language and Deaf culture into the performance. I thus position my research in the context of Deaf Gain proposed by Deaf Studies scholars H-Dirksen L. Bauman and Joseph J. Murray,4 which will be elaborated on in chapter 2. This new framework in Deaf
Studies views Deafness not as hearing loss but a distinct way of being. It enables scholars to explore the benefit of Deafness in different fields, such as its language, lifestyle and cultural practices and the ways in which Deafness contributes to cultural diversity. This framework allows me to examine the value of sign language and the Deaf mode of perception in this art form as reaching also outside Deaf communities.
In chapter 3, I endeavor to define this new genre, specifying what Deaf West means by "bilingual". This word first of all indicates access for both hearing and Deaf audiences. But because of the visual-spatial quality of sign language, the two languages are performed simultaneously, which allows the hearing audience to perceive the performance through an interplay between sign and sound, thus breaking the sensory and aesthetic hierarchy that prioritizes sound in musical theatre. This chapter discusses how sign language can be positioned both as language and aesthetic strategy.
Because for the hearing audience who do not know the meaning of the sign, it is the aesthetic (non-linguistic) aspect of the sign that they first highlight in bilingual musical theatre. Thus in chapter 4 I examine the role of sign language and the technique that Deaf West uses to incorporate sign language into the performance as aesthetic strategy, more specifically, I focus on how they bring new elements to the body-voice relation on stage.
Two bodies of literature that deal with the relation between body and voice can be helpful when examining the role of sign language when perceived together with 4 Bauman, H-Dirksen L., and Joseph J. Murray. 2014. Deaf gain: raising the stakes for
sound in bilingual musical theatre. One emphasizes the dominant role of voice and music in opera over the singer’s body thus detects a "gap" between body and voice, while the other places importance on the function of the body in musical performance, claiming that musical sound and body movements and gestures are equally significant in a musical experience.
I first review works on body-voice gap in music and opera studies by Jelena Novak,5 Carolyn Abbate,6 Peter Brooks,7 Michal Grover-Friedlander.8 Although they
explore this gap from different angles, they all seem to indicate that it is derived from the dominant role of the voice and sound. However, Deaf West's theatrical production uses an innovative approach to singing which implies a whole different body-voice relation than the detected gap. I discuss how this approach sheds new light on the discussion and provides new perspectives for scholars to consider the body-voice relation.
The use of sign language in bilingual musical theatre inevitably brings the performer's body to the fore, thus the role of the body in musical performance has to be acknowledged. In the second section of chapter 4, I review the body of literature which highlights the reciprocity between music and body instead of prioritizing sound in musical performances. The work by Michael Berry9 and Rolf Inge Godøy et al.10 on
the functions of body movements and gestures in a musical performance are useful when examining the non-linguistic aspect of sign language (especially performed in musical numbers) in bilingual musical theatre.
As the non-linguistic (aesthetic) aspect of sign language is discussed in the previous chapter, I will come to the linguistic aspect of sign language in chapter 5, which makes it possible to generate surplus meaning to the spoken/sung texts for a hearing audience. During the performance, the spoken/sung words are simultaneously 5 Jelena Novak, Singing Corporeality: Reinventing the Vocalic Body in Postopera (S.l: S.n., 2012)
6 Carolyn Abbate, Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth
Century (Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996)
7 Peter Brooks, "Body and Voice in Melodrama and Opera," Siren Songs: Representations of
Gender and Sexuality in Opera
8 Michal Grover-Friedlander, "The Afterlife of Maria Callas's Voice," Oxford University
Press 88, no. 1 (Spring 2005)
9 Michael Berry, "The Importance of Bodily Gesture in Sofia Gubaidulina's Music for Low Strings," Music Theory Online 15 (October 2009).
10 Rolf Inge Godøy, Alexander Refsum Jensenius, and Egil Haga, "Playing “Air
Instruments”: Mimicry of Sound-producing Gestures by Novices and Experts," University of
represented by the visual images of the signs. Because of the iconicity of sign language, concrete concepts can be represented through clear visual images that bare physical resemblance to their referents. And because of what Sarah Taub calls " metaphorical iconicity", sign language is also able to demonstrate complex and abstract ideas through concrete and visual-spatial metaphors.11 When perceived
together with the spoken/sung words, although the hearing audience may not know the exact meanings of the signs, these visual images interact with what they hear, and in this process their interpretations of the signs may facilitate or generate surplus meanings to what they hear.
The structure stated above strives to answer two questions: how does sign language in Deaf West bilingual musical theatre 1) challenge the body-voice relation theorized in current literature in opera and music studies and 2) generate surplus meaning to the performance by aesthetic means? I hold the view that sign language has the potential to break the aesthetic and sensory hierarchies in musical theatre by challenging the body-voice relation on stage, and thus provides the hearing audience with a new mode of perception in musical theatre, and at the same time sheds new lights on the scholarly discussion on body-voice relation in music domains; and because of the visual-spatial qualities of sign language, when perceived together with its corresponding spoken/sung words, it is able to generate additional meanings in the performance, complementing the understanding of the performance for the hearing audience.
I will work through these chapters using the Deaf West's revival musical production of Spring Awakening (2015)as case study.
Deaf West's production of Spring Awakening is based on the Broadway musical
Spring Awakening from 2006.12 Using the music by Duncan Sheik and story and
lyrics by Steven Sater, the story is set in late-19th-century Germany and is about a
group of teenagers' exploration for teenage sexuality and identity. There are three main characters in the story. Wendla is an innocent young girl who is naïve and curious about sex but is never given a satisfactory answer by her mother when she asks. She then develops a romantic and passionate relationship with Melchior, a confident and charming boy who fully understands the nature of human body and the 11 Sarah F. Taub, Language from the Body Iconicity and Metaphor in American Sign
Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)
changes it goes through when it reaches puberty.13 While Moritz, Melchior's good
friend and classmate, suffers from the pressure imposed by his parents and teachers to succeed and constantly struggles in school. He often turns to Melchior when he cannot understand the sexual urges of his body. The story reveals the fraught and rocky journey these teenagers go through as they try to understand the changes of their body and mind in puberty. The miscommunication between adolescents and adults such as the parents and institutions especially when concerning sexual repression is also an important theme of the story.14 The story ends with Wendla and
Moritz's death, one from a failed abortion and the other from suicide.
Deaf West produced a revival of this musical with the collaboration of director Michael Arden, choreographer Spencer Liff, and four ASL translators Linda Bove, Shoshannah Stern, Anthony Natale and Elizabeth Greene. This bilingual revival production premiered in Los Angeles in September 2014, and a year later it made its way to Broadway (opened on September 27, 2015).15 It uses the same music and
libretto, as well as the story settings of the 2006 production, but as Deaf West tries to incorporate sign language and Deaf cultural issues into the performance and the plot, some of the characters in the story are given Deaf identities.
For the three main characters, two of them are made Deaf in the Deaf West's production (there is no Deaf characters in the original story and the 2006 production). Melchior (played by hearing actor Austin P. McKenzie) is hearing in the Deaf West production while Wendla (played by Deaf actress Sandra Mae Frank) and Moritz (played by Deaf actor Daniel Durant) are both Deaf. Their deafness intensifies the struggles they go through as they tumble through their adolescence. And as miscommunication between adolescents and adults is also the theme of the story, the character's deafness adds another layer to the communication barrier. It is also worth mentioning that Wendla and Moritz are not the only two Deaf characters in the performance, but as the other Deaf characters are less relevant to my analysis, I will not introduce them all here.
In the Deaf West production, the hearing characters speak/sing and sign at the
13 "Melchior Gabor," Spring Awakening Wiki, , accessed July 21, 2018, http://springawakening.wikia.com/wiki/Melchior_Gabor.
14 Bryan Reesman, "SPRING AWAKENING: Lighting For The Deaf," Lights & Staging
News, 11th ser., 16 (December 2015): 22.
15 "Spring Awakening (musical)," Wikipedia, July 03, 2018, , accessed July 06, 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Awakening_(musical).
same time throughout the show, while Deaf characters are performed by Deaf performers signing with a hearing counterpart voicing the character's line. This technique used to present Deaf characters (played together with a Deaf and a hearing performer) is a signature form of Deaf West, called “shadowing”, which will be introduced in detail in chapter 3.
Chapter 2 Deaf Gain--bridging the hearing and Deaf culture
2.1 a brief overview of how deafness was perceived in history
The study and the perception of deafness by both scholars and society have undergone many changes across time. In mid-sixteenth century, a time when the condition of deafness had not yet been investigated in science and was excluded from the education system, people who were born deaf were considered incapable of intelligence and moral reason, since speech was widely believed to be the foundation for rational thought.16 Thus people and families that were born deaf were mostly
alienated.17 It was a rather dark time for deaf people who were denied access to the
mainstream hearing world and more importantly, a standardized communication system among people who shared the same physical condition.
In the seventeenth century, the development in natural science allowed deafness to be examined closely. During this time, theories of hearing and its impairment as well as surgical treatment for deafness were proposed and explored.18 Meanwhile,
small schools were set up in Europe specifically for deaf children, and two "rival" pedagogical strategies--the "oral" and "manual"--were adopted by German and French schools respectively.19 The oral method "concentrates on the development of speech,
speechreading, and the use of residual hearing", while the manual method acknowledges sign language as the natural language of the deaf and the primary vehicle for learning and communication.20 The speech versus sign debate laid the
foundation for the distinction between two deaf identities in modern time: deaf (those who consider themselves "culturally hearing" and regard their hearing loss only in medical terms) and Deaf (those who are culturally Deaf and use sign language).21 The
two methods for educating the deaf soon became widespread across the world, and by 16 Mara Mills, "Deafness," in Keywords in Sound (Duke University Press, 2015), 45.
17 Ibid. 18 Ibid., 46
19 Marc Marschark and Patricia Elizabeth. Spencer, The Oxford Handbook of Deaf Studies,
Language, and Education (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 21.
20 W. McClure and W. McClure, "Historical Perspectives in the Education of the Deaf," in Persons with Hearing Loss (Springfield, IL: C.C. Thomas, 1969).
the end of the nineteenth century, the oral-only method seemed to win out in this oral/manual rivalry.22
The Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf held in Milan in 1880 marked its final "triumph" when several resolutions were passed to promote a "pure" oral method globally.23 One of the declarations (in English translation) reads:
"given the incontestable superiority of speech over signs in restoring deaf-mutes to society, and in giving them a more perfect knowledge of language that the oral method ought to be preferred to signs".24 In this conference, no deaf people were
involved in preparing or approving the resolutions".25 The abolishment of any kind of
sign instruction deprived thousands of deaf children of an effective means of proper education and communication. Donald F. Moores, a professor of deaf education at Gallaudet University, has claimed that because of the result of this conference, "access to a vibrant Deaf community was either delayed or eliminated".26
It was not until the late twentieth century that the full linguistic status of sign language was acknowledged.27 The oral method began to be widely questioned and
challenged by scholars and educators, and more schools (especially in the United States) moved toward the use of manual communication.28 In the 1970s, Deaf people
(those who use sign language) began to identify themselves as members belonging to a "linguistic minority" instead of merely a group of people who were bonded through disability.29 They claimed their own cultural identity and refused to be labeled
"disabled", which in their mind, is socially constructed and "the result of stigma and barriers in the built environment".30 Deaf people broke through the chains that were
imposed by the hearing, and could comfortably embrace their own identity and ways of living. Later on, a new academic field of Deaf Studies emerged to explore Deaf 22 Marschark and Spencer, The Oxford Handbook of Deaf Studies, Language, and Education, 23
23 Ibid., 24 24 Ibid.
25 Donald F. Moores, "Partners in Progress: The 21st International Congress on Education of the Deaf and the Repudiation of the 1880 Congress of Milan," American Annals of the
Deaf 155, no. 3 (2010): 309.
26 Ibid.
27 Bauman, H-Dirksen L., and Joseph J. Murray. 2014. Deaf gain: raising the stakes for
human diversity
28 Marschark and Spencer, The Oxford Handbook of Deaf Studies, Language, and Education, 28
29 Bauman and Murray. 2014. Deaf gain: raising the stakes for human diversity 30 Mara Mills, "Deafness," 51
culture, and numerous cultural, literary and artistic practices were experimented among Deaf community.
From this brief overview of how deafness was perceived and treated in the society across time, one can see that for a long time the "mainstream" hearing world tried to assimilate the deaf way of being by forcing deaf people to overcome their physical condition and blend in with the hearing environment through pedagogical approaches and technical aids. The result was not ideal and deaf people were still considered (also by themselves) as social outcasts at that time. And as more deaf people began to claim their own identity, Deaf culture was gradually "emancipated" from the hearing mainstream and gained its own position in the society. Deaf people are given the choice on how much they want to get involved with the hearing world by demanding access to relevant domains instead of being pushed into another culture against their consent. More local Deaf communities are formed either geographically where Deaf people choose to live closely to each other thus share living facilities for the Deaf, or psychologically where Deaf people are bonded by their cultural identity and similar ways to perceive the world.
One example of how Deaf people perceive their Deafness can be found in the Dutch film Deaf Child which is a documentary about the life of Tobias de Ronde, a Deaf child raised in a hearing family who were "never taught that there were obstacles".31 His family respected his choice to go to a sign language school when he
was little, and encouraged him to explore his Deaf identity. The film, contradicting to the possible expression of hearing people on deafness, shows the ease of Tobias's life being able to live within the Deaf community and communicate in sign language with his Deaf friends. He grows into a cheerful and charming young man who loves his culture and language and is proud of his Deaf Identity.
As Deaf people break away from the "hegemony" of the hearing world and gain autonomy, there is an increasing demand for access to the domains that have long excluded them, such as predominantly hearing art forms. However, the access is hardly mutual, which means that as more domains begin to provide access to the Deaf, there are very few opportunities for hearing people to learn about Deaf culture.
The one-wayness of access between two the cultures may result from two factors as far as I am concerned. The first one is the lack of incentive for hearing people (both 31 Deaf Child, dir. Alex De Ronde, perf. Tobias De Ronde, Http://deafchild-film.com/, accessed July 21, 2018.
scholars and the general public) to learn about Deaf culture. Although Deafness is now considered the linguistic and cultural identity for Deaf people, this change of perception is not yet widely-known among hearing world. In a MA course I took when I talked about Deafness and Deaf Studies, most of my classmates stated that they were not sure what Deaf Studies was about and still generally regarded deafness as a disability. Chances are slim that hearing people will ask for access to the Deaf world if they still consider Deafness as merely hearing loss. Another reason might be that Deaf culture is very largely constructed by sign language, a complex semiotic system that is highly different from spoken language. When thinking of sign language, hearing people usually only think of its communicative function as a language, thus it is natural for people to assume that their lack of sign language skill might prevent them from acquainting themselves with Deaf culture.
Therefore, even though the hearing and Deaf society now have a rather harmonious relationship comparing with the past, they remain quite separated from each other, and the access to the other culture is mainly for the Deaf to the hearing society and not usually the other way around. As Deaf people continue to seek for more access to and explore the domains that have long excluded them, most hearing people remain rather clueless about Deaf culture.
However, recently, more scholars in Deaf Studies begin to acknowledge the value of Deaf culture not only within Deaf community, but for all human beings. A new framework that focuses on the value of Deafness is thus presented in Deaf Studies, providing new perspectives for scholars to view Deafness and Deaf cultural practices in different fields such as musicology, and for the general public to understand another culture. It thus has the potential to arouse the demand for mutual access between the two cultures, especially for the hearing society to the Deaf. In the next section, I will elaborate on the field of Deaf Studies and the new framework that considers Deafness as gain.
2.2 Deaf Studies and "Deaf Gain"
The field of Deaf Studies emerged in the late twentieth century shortly after Deaf people began to claim their own Deaf identity. This academic field is composed by
"interdisciplinary approaches to the exploration of Deaf individuals, communities, and cultures as they have evolved within a larger context of power and ideology".32
Deafness is defined as a linguistic, cultural and sensorial way of being in the world instead of "hearing loss", which becomes the fundamental orientation of Deaf Studies. As this academic field develops into the twenty-first century, new Deaf issues appear that need to be addressed by Deaf Studies scholars. Rapid advances in technology and medical science begin to threaten the future vitality of Deaf communities. For example, genetic screening is made possible by scientists so that parents can choose to avoid having a deaf baby.33 These developments have already reduced the Deaf
population and have the potential to continue to threat the future of Deaf community. The question whether deaf people and sign language should continue to exist is thus presented to scholars in Deaf Studies.34
In response to this fundamental existential question, Deaf Studies scholars H-Dirksen L. Bauman and Joseph J. Murray propose the notion of "Deaf Gain", reframing deafness as creative, cognitive and cultural gains manifested through the Deaf way of being.35 In the works on Deaf Gain by Bauman and Murray, they make a
distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic value of Deafness and Deaf culture. The intrinsic arguments explore the worth of Deaf people and their culture for themselves. For example, Matthew Dye, an expert in Brain and Cognitive Science that is associated with deafness, writes about how the visual attention of deaf people is heightened without distraction by auditory noise.36 The extrinsic arguments, on the
other hand, recognize the physical and cognitive difference of deafness as vital to human diversity.37 When examined within the frame of human diversity, Bauman and
Murray argue, "Deaf Studies scholars are inquiring into the insights that may be gleaned from deaf people whose highly visual, spatial, and kinetic structures of thought and language may shed light into the blindspots of hearing ways of knowing".38
32 Bauman and Murray. 2014. Deaf gain: raising the stakes for human diversity 33 Ibid.
34 Ibid. 35 Ibid.
36 H-Dirksen L. Bauman and Joseph J. Murray, "Seeing the World through Deaf Eyes," in Deaf Gain: Raising the Stakes for Human Diversity(Minneapolis: Univ Of Minnesota Press, 2014).
37 Ibid. 38 Ibid, 11
Because of this development in Deaf Studies, and the fact that more scholars in sound and music studies begin to challenge the conception of music and have come to the conclusion that "musical experience in general involves sensory input from multiple sources" instead of just the auditory, 39 some musicologists begin to abandon
the presumption that the condition of deafness hinders the understanding of music, and the "deaf" ways of listening begin to attract their attention.40
The new framework of Deaf Gain in Deaf Studies was brought into the field of music studies by Jessica Holmes in her work Expert Listening beyond the Limits of
Hearing: Music and Deafness. She claims that the pathbreaking framework that
considers Deafness as gain is significant for musicology, as Deaf listeners "resist straightforward sensory hierarchies, reject normalizing listening paradigms, and transform prevailing notions of musical expertise".41
When looking back at the history how deafness was perceived in both hearing and deaf world discussed in the last section, we have already noticed that for most of the time the two cultures remain quite isolated from each other. And once there are connections between them, the access is usually one-way from the Deaf to the hearing. The notion of Deaf Gain, however, provides a new theoretical framework that bridges two cultures, because the extrinsic value of the Deaf way of being has proven to be fruitful when studying the hearing domains. This may hopefully create incentives for more hearing scholars in the future to explore Deaf culture and sign language in their own fields, since the amount of such work is still quite limited.
Besides academic work, the notion of Deaf Gain can provide new perspectives for both hearing and Deaf artists to explore art forms that bond the two cultures. It has already encouraged more Deaf artists to explore domains that are not normally considered accessible for the Deaf, and at the same time present their distinct mode of perception through various art projects, especially music projects, to the hearing.
There are now some Deaf music practices that provide mutual access between the hearing and the Deaf, and on different levels integrate modes of perceptions and artistic ideas from the two cultures. In the next section, I will look into several existing Deaf music practices through the notion of Deaf Gain, especially its extrinsic aspect, that is, how they promote the Deaf way of listening to the hearing audience 39 Anabel Maler, "Songs for Hands," Music Theory Online 19, no. 1 (2013): 1.
40 Ibid.
and enrich their music perception.
2.3 Deaf music practices--mutual access between the two cultures
Innovative music practices are not rare in Deaf communities. Christine Sun Kim, a sound artist who has been deaf since birth, is a famous contributor to such fields. Proposing to "listen with our eyes and not just our ears", she tries to explore the physicality of sound in her works and attempts to present music through a visual medium.42 In one of her projects she shows the effect of sound vibration on various
materials such as color powder, strings and ink. Transposing the properties of sound into the splash patterns of the ink or the vibration trajectories of the strings, she endeavors to demonstrate an alternative way of hearing for both hearing and Deaf people. Another example is the works by Dame Evelyn Glennie, a celebrated percussionist who has been profoundly deaf since the age of 12. In her TED Talk in February 2003, she demonstrates how music can be "listened" to through the body which serves as a "resonating chamber" and how this physical connection to sound creates sensations, claiming sound as a multisensorial experience.43
Both artists attempt to break away from the conventional hearing mindset that sound must be experienced through ears. Instead, it can be seen through the visual or felt tactually. Kim and Glennie, as members of the Deaf community, explores and demonstrates different ways sound and music can be perceived that are accessible for Deaf people, encouraging them to discover the beauty of sound in their own ways. And as they both have presented their projects to the general public, their works also provide access for the hearing to the Deaf way of listening, giving them a chance to experience what it is like to see or feel music without the auditory sound which the hearing audience always take for granted. Such practices become the bridge between the two cultures, bringing what is considered exclusive for the hearing to the Deaf, and promoting the Deaf way of "listening" to the hearing.
Two other music practices in Deaf culture, "musical Visual Vernacular" and song signing are able to connect the two cultures to a further step. Musical Visual Vernacular (VVm) is a style of performance that first spread in the Italian Deaf 42 "Christine Sun Kim, A Selby Film," Vimeo, February 19, 2018, accessed February 19, 2018, https://vimeo.com/31083172.
Community in 2008.44 Using classifiers in sign language and facial expressions, the
Deaf performer directly interacts with the music vibration through the tactile perception. The performer translates in sign language both his tactile sensations and artistic idea, creating visual images of the music that are equally understandable by both deaf and hearing audiences.45 In the VVm performance The Conversation by F.
Grilli, the performer stands on a wooden sculpture under which an amplifier is placed so that he can feel with his bare feet the music vibration of the live performance of cello and double-bass placed on both sides of the sculpture.46 Some black balloons are
placed around the sculpture so from the vibration of the balloons, the audience can also feel the music while watching the performer. In this process, the hearing audience hear the music performance, and at the same time are able to see how the music parameters and artistic ideas are visualized through sign language and other visual cues.
Song signing, here mainly referring to the act of translating the lyrics of pre-existing songs into sign language, is a traditional art form in Deaf cultures around the world. In recent years, song signing has been popularized through videos on major video and social network websites such as YouTube. Consequently, the signed song has spread into the hearing community, and YouTube has become an active platform for communities of Deaf, hearing, and hard-of-hearing song signers.47 A song signing
video usually features a performer signing the lyrics in front of the camera while the song is played simultaneously in the background.
Unlike the music projects by Kim and Glennie, these two practices are presented as the hybrid of the two ways of listening. They are the products of the convergence of two cultures. Both the hearing and the Deaf are able to find the perception mode that they are familiar with and enlightening new elements from the other culture that can be integrated into their own. The hearing audience do not experience music in the Deaf ways of hearing without auditory sound this time, but they listen while processing all the other sensory input that stem from the music. The visual (or tactile) representation is no longer the replacement or alternatives for auditory sound, but 44 Anna Ambra Zaghetto, "Musical Visual Vernacular. How the Deaf People Translate the Sound Vibrations into the Sign Language: An Example from Italy," Signata, no. 3 (2012): 274
45 Ibid.
46 7grilli, "The conversation," YouTube, June 25, 2012, , accessed January 19, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O34uulsSWzU.
supporting and complementing what they hear.
Thus considering the extrinsic aspect of Deaf Gain of such practices, their significance for hearing audience lies in the interaction and reciprocity between these different sensory input. It is a situation when the audible music and the visual cues work together to enrich the experience of music.
However, although these music practices provide mutual access between the two cultures and demonstrate both intrinsic and extrinsic value of Deaf Gain, it seems that the extrinsic value is often overlooked when studied in academic works. In music theory scholar Anabel Maler's work on song signing, her analysis focuses on sign language's capacity to represent music elements and the techniques signers use to transpose music to signs, thus examining the legitimacy of sign language as the visual representation of music for Deaf audience.48 And in Anna Zaghetto's work on VVm,
she does acknowledge the perceptions of both hearing and Deaf audience, but she only focuses on the auditory channel for hearing audience in order to contrast it with the visual and tactile channel in Deaf people's music perception.49 But how does this
Deaf way of perceiving change the music experience of a hearing audience?
As a hearing audience who has always been taking sound and music for granted, I am surprised to see how these Deaf music practices present new ways of listening, steering our attention from audible sound to other media that are able to convey similar or different messages to that of sound, which are usually neglected or considered trivial by us. So the value of these practices should not be confined in Deaf community, but should be explored extrinsically. When presented for people that do have access to audible sound, it is possible that these Deaf ways of hearing can contribute to changing the sensory hierarchies and listening paradigm for hearing people, thus allowing them to experience music in a new and exciting way. And for music studies in general, the Deaf way of hearing may enrich the theories of musical understanding.
In this thesis I explore the extrinsic aspect of Deaf Gain of the art form of Deaf West bilingual musical theatre. Catering for both Deaf and hearing audience, bilingual musical theatre is an all-embracing art form that integrates various artistic elements. Comparing with the forms of song signing and VVm and their capacity to provide 48 Ibid.
49 Anna Ambra Zaghetto, "Musical Visual Vernacular. How the Deaf People Translate the Sound Vibrations into the Sign Language: An Example from Italy," Signata, no. 3 (2012): 274
mutual access between the two cultures, bilingual musical theatre goes a step further and converges the two cultures on a higher level.
In the next chapter, I will look closely at this particular art form and discuss how sign language and the technique the production team uses to incorporate sign language into the performance can be considered as both aesthetic strategy and language for a hearing audience.
Chapter 3 Deaf West's bilingual musical theatre--sign language as
both access and aesthetic strategy
3.1 an overview of Deaf West's bilingual musical theatre
The form of bilingual musical theatre is not created by Deaf West, but by the constant effort of a group of Deaf theatre practitioners. They endeavor to find better ways to fuse various different artistic elements together with the two cultures and experiment with different methods and forms, and Deaf West managed to achieve this goal.
Their current form can find its origin in National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD). NTD endeavors to build bridges between the two cultures, hoping that their performances can enlighten a wide spectrum of audiences, especially educate hearing audience about ASL and Deaf culture. They experiment with performing styles that blend ASL and spoken language, aiming to "add depth, meaning, and perception to traditional and original stage plays".50
However, because the members of the leadership of the company who are in control of the performing method and style are mostly hearing, NTD's approach still takes English as the dominant language which is enhanced through "beautiful signing", and the material they use is usually geared to the hearing audience.51 The
performance of ASL in NTD's theatrical productions received complaints from the Deaf audience, claiming that the signs used in the performance are rather cryptic and Deaf cultural issues are left unexplored.52
Acknowledging this "imbalance", Ed Waterstreet, who used to be a Deaf actor in NTD for 15 years, established Deaf West Theatre in 1991 in Los Angeles.53 He
50 "National Theatre of the Deaf – MISSION," National Theatre of the Deaf History, , accessed July 21, 2018, http://www.ntd.org/ntd_mission.html.
51 Deaf West Theatre, accessed May 09, 2018, https://abilitymagazine.com/Deaf_West_Theatre.html.
52 Carrie Sandahl, "National Theatre of the Deaf," Encyclopædia Britannica, October 31, 2014, , accessed May 09, 2018, https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Theatre-of-the-Deaf.
53 "Deaf West Theatre," Billie Jean King, , accessed July 21, 2018, https://www.abilitymagazine.com/Deaf_West_Theatre.html.
wanted to explore the artistic expression of sign freed from the dictates of the spoken words, benefiting mainly the Deaf audience. The ASL translators work together with the director and choreographer, exploring the artistic potential and expressiveness of sign language, but keeping in mind that the linguistic and communicative functions of sign language are not jeopardized.54 Deaf West's theatrical production also endeavors
to incorporate Deaf culture into the plot and theme of the performance, bringing out issues in Deaf communities such as sign language education and parenting method, therefore both hearing and Deaf cultures are given equal attention. This innovation, which not only incorporates sign language, but also Deaf culture into the performance, is highly appraised by both Deaf and hearing audiences.55
In order to incorporate both sign language and Deaf culture into the performance, they adopt a "shadowing" technique.
What the production team does first is to incorporate Deaf culture into the plot by making some of the main characters Deaf in the story. Through the words and actions of these Deaf characters, the performance is able to reflect the Deaf way of being and induce Deaf cultural issues. These Deaf characters are played by Deaf performers. While the Deaf performer is signing on stage, a corresponding hearing performer is voicing the character's lines. Thus each Deaf character is played by a Deaf performer and a hearing performer being his/her voice.
It is important to note that the hearing performer, who portrays the voice of the Deaf character, is also presented on stage, usually as the shadow of the character. For this purpose the director designs different ways they could appear on the stage, such as standing beside/behind the Deaf performer in dimmer light, or positioning themselves on the opposite side of the stage with the Deaf performer, mirroring the posture of their Deaf counterparts.
There is another role of the voice character on stage. Besides being the shadow of the Deaf character, there are also interesting moments when they interact with their corresponding Deaf performer, presented as the visualized subconscious of the 54 Ashley Lee, "Translation Aren't Literal and Exact - 'Spring Awakening': 10 Things to Know About Choreographing for Broadway's Deaf Actors," The Hollywood Reporter, October 10, 2015, , accessed May 09, 2018, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/spring- awakening-broadway-10-things-831170/item/asl-translation-spring-awakening-broadway-831189.
55 Michael Dale, "Deaf Audience Members Offer Critiques on Deaf West's SPRING AWAKENING," Broadway World, November 02, 2015, , accessed May 08, 2018,
https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Deaf-Audience-Members-Offer-Critiques-on-Deaf-Wests-SPRING-AWAKENING-20151102.
character. Their presence on stage enables the character to express feelings of internal conflict.56 An example of this can be found in the performance of Spring Awakening
when Wendla learns that her sister is pregnant. When she asks her mother how a baby is conceived, her mother thinks it is a shameful thing to talk about to her daughter and, like always, refuses to answer her. As Wendla gives up and prepares to walk away, her voice character, who by the time is standing beside her, stops Wendla and uses her body language to encourage Wendla to continue this topic. In such moments, the voice performer is also presented as the subconscious or the inner self of the Deaf character.
Hearing characters in the show are played by hearing performers who sign and speak/sing at the same time. So the entire show is performed by both sign and speech/song, making it accessible for both Deaf and hearing audience.
3.2 "bilingual"--sign language as access
Before going into detail about how this art form provides mutual access to both the hearing and the Deaf and how Deafness in this art form can be perceived as gain for the hearing audience, it is important to first make clear what "bilingual" musical theatre means as a new art form.
On Deaf West's own website and in the reviews of Deaf West's productions, the word "bilingual" is used frequently, which is considered accurate when referring to their productions since two languages are involved in their production. However, the term "bilingual theatre" is often used rather loosely by theatre practitioners. For example, two actors Elin Phillips and Gwawr Loader, both from the south east of the UK, started the bilingual theatre company Criw Brwd, aiming to represent voices that are rarely heard in Welsh theatre. Their current production is a Welsh translation of Chloe Moss drama Christmas is Miles Away. In this case the term "bilingual" mainly rests in the translation process that bridges the two languages (English/Welsh) and the performance itself is in Welsh.57
Another example of bilingual theatre is Zach Theatre's Cenicienta, with a script 56 "Deaf West Theatre," Billie Jean King, , accessed July 21, 2018,
https://www.abilitymagazine.com/Deaf_West_Theatre.html.
57 "Two Friends Start Bilingual Welsh Theatre Company Criw Brwd," BBC News, January 27, 2018, , accessed June 09, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-42843751.
written by Rupert Reyes and Caroline Reck, who is also the director.58 In the story the
heroine's primary language is Spanish while her stepmother and stepsisters speak English. The play incorporates Mexican-American culture, and is performed in about 60 percent English and 40 percent Spanish.59 In this play there is no translation
(between English and Spanish) involved in the production process and performance, since the script is written in the rehearsal process with the collaboration between the writers and the director while trying out different scenarios with the main actress.60
And the resulting performance is in a rather equal ratio between English and Spanish. The case of Deaf West seems to be the combination of the two examples of bilingual theatre mentioned above. The term "bilingual" in the first example emphasizes the translation and the production process, and the languages are mainly considered in terms of language use on stage, and, correspondingly, access for different groups of audiences. So the function of sign language for the Deaf audience in Deaf West is the same with the Welsh version of Christmas is Miles Away to Welsh people. And in order to provide effective access for the targeted audience, the translated language should ensure the clarity for them to follow the show.
In the second example of Cenicienta, "bilingual" requires the use of two languages in the performance. But unlike using two spoken languages, the use of sign language, being a spatial and visual language, enables the play to be performed in two languages simultaneously. Thus the access is mutual. It allows the Deaf audience to follow and enjoy the play with sign incorporated into the performance by signing actors, so that they do not have to split focus between the action on stage and the interpreter off to the side (which is another attempt to bring theatre to the Deaf adopted by many theatre companies).61 It also provides the hearing audience with
access to Deaf culture and sign language, which they would hardly encounter in their life, making their theatrical experience an enlightening and eye-opening one.
It is also important to note that the visual, spatial, iconic and performative 58 Elissa Russell, "A Girl Wants to Go to the Big Party, but Her Stepmother and Stepsisters Won't Let Her. Sound Familiar? That's Part of the Charm of Zach's Bilingual Variation on Cinderella.," Food - The Austin Chronicle, , accessed June 09, 2018,
https://www.austinchronicle.com/arts/2015-05-15/cenicienta/. 59 Ibid
60 Nicole Villalpando, "A Modern Bilingual Cinderella in Zach Theatre's 'Cenicienta'," Mystatesman, September 24, 2016, , accessed June 09, 2018,
https://www.mystatesman.com/lifestyles/parenting/modern-bilingual-cinderella-zach-theatre-cenicienta/QE1ivilUEZ3Cvj5e3RO3GO/.
qualities of sign language may facilitate the hearing audience's understanding of the performance. It has the capacity to transform spoken/sung words into visual images, distinguishing itself from other types of body movements and gestures in musical theatre that mainly function to express emotions or create visual effect.
When the visual and spatial images are perceived together with spoken/sung words, although the hearing audience may not know what each sign means, its iconic and mimetic nature and the interaction with its spoken/sung counterpart allow the audience to explore the meaning it carries, complementing what they hear.
Therefore, sign language, when perceived together with spoken/sung words, has the potential to generate additional meaning through visual-spatial images which spoken language is unable to convey, and on a certain level facilitate audience's understanding of the performance.
Thus bilingual musical theatre, an art form where signed and spoken language, as well as hearing and Deaf culture converge, provides mutual access and intercultural experiences for both hearing and Deaf audiences.
3.3 sign language as aesthetic strategy
So far sign language and the shadowing technique that is adopted to blend the two languages and cultures are mainly discussed as access for both hearing and Deaf audiences. But the role they play in bilingual musical theatre is far from merely access. In this section I will discuss the aesthetic aspect of sign language and the shadowing technique, in terms of how they are given an aesthetic spin as a vital part of the art form.
Of course, the aesthetic quality of the sign used in the performance is by no means exclusive for the hearing audience, as the Deaf audience can also enjoy them as an organic part of the art form besides its function as access. But since my purpose here is to explore the extrinsic value of Deafness and sign language in bilingual musical theatre, how they are perceived aesthetically by Deaf audience is not discussed in this thesis. Instead, my focus is on what this art form is able to offer for the hearing audience that can change their perception of musical theatre through a synthesis of sign and sound, and possibly enrich their theatrical experience. Thus sign language and the technique Deaf West use to blend the two languages are positioned
as aesthetic strategy mainly from a hearing audience's perspective.
3.3.1 the shadowing technique
The shadowing technique that is explained in the previous section is not created by Deaf West. Its current form is originated from NTD, in which the Deaf character is also played by both Deaf and hearing performer, but with the hearing performer only voicing for the character on the side of the stage. Technically, NTD's method would suffice in terms of language access for both groups of audiences, but Deaf West takes another step by incorporating it into the plot and performing style. As mentioned before, the production team endeavors to diversify the ways how the voice characters are presented on stage in the course of the performance, whether as the shadows of the Deaf characters or as their visualized subconscious.
In terms of meaning producing, their presence usually intensifies the emotional status of the Deaf character, or expresses the internal conflict of the character in certain situations (through their body movements, facial expressions and sometimes their positions on stage), which can hardly be achieved if they only use their voice. Their presence on stage thus facilitates the audience's understanding of these Deaf characters and the psychological journey they go through as the story unfolds.
And in terms of visual effect, the various ways they are presented in the course of the performance, such as standing behind a screen showing their shadows or mirroring the posture of their Deaf counterparts in dimmer light, contribute to the diversity of the overall performing style and enrich the visual experience of the audiences.
Furthermore, while this strategy that visually divides the voice and body of a character can be an interesting visual attraction for the audiences, it also complicates how body and voice can be presented on stage in musical theatre. And in academic fields, it poses new questions for scholars in the current discussion on the body-voice relationship observed on stage in musical/music theatre. In the first section of chapter 4, I will review this literature on the body-voice relation and see what new elements Deaf West's shadowing technique is able to bring to the current discussion.
3.3.2 sign language incorporated into the music and choreography
While making sure that the signs convey clear meanings for the Deaf audience, the production team in Deaf West makes the effort to incorporate the signs into the performance of musical numbers and choreography. This means that the signs used on stage is quite different from the ones that are used by Deaf people in daily life, but are modified or "beautified", especially when performing the musical numbers.
The director, ASL translator and choreography work together in the production process, trying their best to make the signs visually enjoyable. In the performance, the actors sign in different strength, speed and location in order to match the style and music elements of the songs, and as the signs are also incorporated into the choreography, they are done with vast amount of body movement, enabling the signs to carry stronger and richer emotions.
For a hearing audience, instead of the communicative function of sign language, its artistic quality that the production team endeavors to emphasize and incorporate into the art form becomes central in their theatrical experience. Without knowing the specific meaning of the sign, the non-linguistic and aesthetic aspect of sign language is highlighted by the hearing audience, and the signs are very often perceived as body movements and gestures.
The auditory pleasure that they usually prioritize in musical theatre is now experienced in a synthesis of sound and the highly expressive and visually abundant signs. The signs draw the audience's attention to the visual, breaking the sensory and aesthetic hierarchies in a predominantly acoustic domain, thus providing a new way of perception of musical theatre for the hearing audience.62 On the other hand, the
artistic design of the sign that enables it to be performed in perfect accordance with music intensifies the music element as well as the meaning of the song for the hearing audience. How the musical sound work together with the visual, more specifically, the body movements and gestures to enrich the music experience will be explored in more depth in the second section of chapter 4.
I explore how sign language would generate surplus meaning and facilitate the understanding of the performance when perceived together with spoken/sung texts in chapter 5. I briefly talked about it in the previous section in which sign language is 62 Sarah Wilbur, "Gestural Economies and Production Pedagogies in Deaf West’s Spring Awakening," TDR/The Drama Review 60, no. 2 (2016): 150.
considered as language access. But I position it after chapter 4 because as I try to explore bilingual musical theatre "extrinsically", I think the aesthetic aspect of sign language and the technique to incorporate it into the performance would take a bigger role than its linguistic aspect from a hearing audience's perspective.
In conclusion, sign language and the shadowing technique that Deaf West adopts to blend the two languages and cultures enable both hearing and Deaf audiences to enjoy the performance. From a hearing audience's perspective, it provides access to a language and culture that they do not normally encounter in daily life. And how the signs are interpreted may facilitate their understanding of the performance.
More importantly, besides the role of access, sign language and the shadowing technique function as aesthetic strategies of the art form. The synthesis of sign and sound provides them a new mode of perception in musical theatre, breaking the aesthetic and sensory hierarchies that they are used to, and enriching their theatrical experience.
Chapter 4 Challenging the body-voice relation in musical theatre
4.1 new elements to the current discussion on body-voice gap
The use of sign language and the shadowing technique in Deaf West, as mentioned before, have the potential to challenge the body-voice relation, more specifically, the body-voice gap often observed in the domains where music and voice is prioritized. Such a gap is normal and usually accepted in a predominantly acoustic domain like opera where audience come solely for the music. For most opera-lovers, opera should be heard and not seen.63
This gap between body and voice is closely examined by scholars mainly in music, opera and film studies. In this section I will review some of these works and see how bilingual musical theatre brings new elements to the discussion. But before that, as the body-voice gap is mainly observed and studied in opera, which is a different genre from the musical theatre I refer to in this thesis, I first try to distinguish these two genres and explain how the chosen works are relevant here.
4.1.1 musical theatre and opera--two different genres
In her book Musical Theatre, Realism and Entertainment, Millie Taylor, a professor and director of musical theatre, tries to summarize what constitute musical theatre from a diversity of practices, and she draws a simple and preliminary conclusion that it is an art form where various components, such as songs, dances and dialogue appear fluid and continuous as a whole.64 Musical theatre seeks the
"integration" of these components, thus it requires the collaborative creative process in which not only book-writer, lyricist, and composer but also producer, director, choreographer and designers all play essential part, and each of these components contribute to the overall style of the production.65
63 Michal Grover-Friedlander, "The Afterlife of Maria Callas's Voice," Oxford University
Press 88, no. 1 (Spring 2005): 55.
64 Millie Taylor, Musical Theatre, Realism and Entertainment (London: Routledge, 2016), 1. 65 Kim H. Kowalke, “Theorizing the Golden Age Musical: Genre, Structure, Syntax,” in A
Opera, however, presents a different case. Musicologist Laurel E. Zeiss describes opera as a multivalent art form: "it combines dramatic and literary traditions with vocal and instrumental music and the visual and plastic arts to tell a story".66 But as
these elements together constitute opera, the weight they carry in an opera performance is by no means equal, but demonstrates a distinct hierarchy. Music in opera plays a central expressive and structural role, and in opera studies, it is a common belief that music "serves as the primary dramatic and formal agent".67 Thus
the singer is usually the defining feature of opera, regarded both as an embodied musical performer, and in more abstract terms, as pure voice.68
Opera's emphasis on the voice and usually undermined role of the performer's body is where some scholars position the body-voice gap. For example, Christopher B. Balme states that 'opera in performance can be termed the "dissonant art"', where disappointment looms large when people see the body on stage.69 Thus there is a
tension, or an imbalance between seeing and hearing due to the conventional stage directions in opera that a stiff, puppet-like body with full makeup and costumes sings with an highly expressive voice.70
This observation, although true in opera, is not that sufficient in musical theatre. In musical theatre, the body of the singer is no longer "stiff and puppet-like", for singing, acting and dancing are all indispensible elements of musical theatre and required talent of musical performers. So such an imbalance between the voice and the body of the performer, or the "overly expressive voice" and the "stiff and puppet-like" body in opera may not be that much a problem in musical theatre.
Peter Brooks takes a similar angle with Balme in terms of how body and voice are represented in opera. He places importance on the audience's different demands on voice and body for dramatic representation in opera. Usually in a recital of lieder, as Brooks points out, the body is effaced because it is voice that people focus on. But in opera, the body on stage is presented in an overtly dramatic and hyperbolic manner as
6/2
(2013): 134
66 Laurel E. Zeiss, "The Dramaturgy of Opera," in The Cambridge Companion to Opera
Studies (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 179.
67 Ibid., 181
68 Susan Rutherford and Nicholas Till, "Voices and Singers," in The Cambridge Companion
to Opera Studies (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 117.
69 Christopher B. Balme, "Seeing Sound. Visuality in Contemporary Music Theatre," in Performing the Matrix: Mediating Cultural Performance(München, 2008), 70. 70 Jelena Novak, Singing Corporeality: Reinventing the Vocalic Body in Postopera,16
the embodiment of the voice, which is hard to neglect.71 He gives vivid examples of
the mismatch between the body and voice, when a fifty-year-old tenor is made to "wobble around the stage in Egyptian fighting gear" or an ample soprano take the role of a teenage virgin.72 Lovers of opera may gladly embrace this "body-voice operatic
situation" while some audience find it difficult to accept this convention. Either way, the body-voice gap remains as opera abandons realistic representation.
Dramatic representation still exists in musical theatre, but unlike opera where singer's age and physical feature are important to support their vocal capacity, the performers in musical theatre are usually able to bare much higher resemblance with the characters they play due to different singing styles, especially in pop/rock musicals.
Thus Balme and Brooks's observation on body-voice gap, although hold certain truth in opera, seem less sufficient in musical theatre due to genre differences. However, as both forms have been expanding in recent times, overlaps between them become more common.73 Jelena Novak, in her book Singing Corporeality: Reinventing the Vocalic Body in Postopera, discusses the body-voice relations in the
context of postopera, which she defines as "opera that is postmodern and postdramatic at the same time".74 She argues that in conventional opera , although music usually
plays the dominant role, it is still structured by "dramatic principles of the libretto", yet in postopera, "the constellation of elements together make up the theatrical event".75
The emergence of postopera, according to Novak, is largely due to the fact that more contemporary opera directors that come from other fields such as visual arts and film begin to share equal authority with the composer, bringing new media in operatic texts.76 This new genre that derived from opera shares higher similarities with musical
theatre, in terms of how the elements that constitute the art form break the hierarchy and take equal position.
71 Peter Brooks, "Body and Voice in Melodrama and Opera," Siren Songs: Representations
of Gender and Sexuality in Opera: 121.
72 Ibid., 121
73 Nahma Sandrow, "THEATER; Where Musicals and Opera Overlap, a Hybrid Emerges," The New York Times, July 14, 2002, , accessed July 21, 2018,
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/14/theater/theater-where-musicals-and-opera-overlap-a-hybrid-emerges.html.
74 Jelena Novak, Singing Corporeality,22 75 Ibid.
As discussed above, not all the works on the body-voice gap are applicable in the context of musical theatre due to some genre differences. But when considering Deaf West bilingual musical theatre, there are works that are highly relevant. For example, Carolyn Abbate attributes the body-voice gap to the fact that when the singing body performs a role in opera, the role is unaware of its singing.77 Although musical theatre
does not usually have the sustained tones of singing as in opera, what Abbate says is also true in musical theatre when the characters sing.
Michal Grover-Friedlander, a scholar in musicology, explores the body-voice gap in operatic films, looking into the attempts to attach voice to anther body.78 It is
interesting to see that the seamless attachment between body and voice is exactly what Deaf West tries to avoid by adopting the shadowing technique.
Steven Connor, whose main research field is literature and culture, explores the body-voice gap in ventriloquism, an art that is based on performing this gap.79 And
the work by Novak positions body-voice gap in the context of postopera, examining how operatic practices in which new media and technology play an important role reinvent the body-voice relation. She emphasizes the ventriloquial dimension of the example she analyzes in her work which adopts a similar form with Deaf West's technique. In the next subsection, I will review these works and see what bilingual musical theatre bring to the current discussion.
4.1.2 literature reviews on body-voice gap and new questions to address
Abbate argues in her book Unsung voices that in opera, characters often suffer from "deafness" as they seem unaware of their singing and do not hear the music.80
"We must generally assume, in short, that this music is not produced by or within the stage-world, but emanates from other loci as secret commentaries for our ears alone, and that characters are generally unaware that they are singing."81 Therefore, in opera,
77 Carolyn Abbate, Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth
Century (Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996)
78 Michal Grover-Friedlander, "The Afterlife of Maria Callas's Voice," Oxford University
Press 88, no. 1 (Spring 2005)
79 Steven Connor, "Violence, Ventriloquism and the Vocalic Body," in Psychoanalysis and
Performance (London: Routledge, 2001)
80 Carolyn Abbate, Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth
Century (Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), 119.
the body of the singer and the body of the character are explicitly divided and the singer is merely lending his/her voice to the character.82 "Speaking (the dramatic text
of the libretto) is represented by singing and singing reflects back to the body that should represent speaking", a gap thus is created between the body on stage and its voice.83
The gap, as Abbate argues, appears as they sing when they are supposed to speak. An analogical argument can be made in bilingual musical theatre. The Deaf character, like any other characters in musical theatre, is also not aware of his/her "singing". But what is interesting here is that Abbate uses "deafness" metaphorically referring to the situation where singers do not hear their singing, which shows the usual bias of applying the vocabulary of "deafness" to a situation of “lack”. This is the view which I am seeking to revise in this thesis. As elaborated in chapter 2, instead of hearing loss, Deafness is a different linguistic, cultural and sensorial way of being. It means that Deaf people do "hear", but through different media other than audible sound. Similarly, they do possess "voice", but in a visual form, more specifically, in their bodies.
When Deaf characters "sing", it is achieved by different signing styles and methods that are different from the way they sign the dialogue (song signer are often identified as singer by some Deaf musicologists). Thus Abbate's argument excludes the situation where "voice" is presented visually. And it poses a new question for the scholars: is it still a body-voice "gap" when voice is represented by the body?
Friedlander explores the afterlives of voices by looking into different forms of hybrids between film and opera. In The Afterlife of Maria Callas's Voice, she examines Franco Zeffirelli's film Callas Forever in which the operatic diva's manager Larry strives to return the operatic voice from the dead. Techniques of what she terms "re-voicing" are discussed, such as post-synchronization, dubbing and playback, as Larry, in the film, asks Callas to give the performance but using her old music recording.84 The effect of dubbing in the film is quite successful, yet this seemingly
seamless re-attachment of body and voice is exactly what is problematic and rejected by Callas herself. These re-voicing techniques, as Michel Chion points out, "reveal the unity of body and voice to be a trick, an illusion of a wholeness that can only be 82 Jelena Novak, Singing Corporealit,17
83 Ibid.
