.Fish dance when they are not sleeping (Opera for the Deaf) is an immersive interdisciplinary opera performance based on a collaboration between two cultures or worlds, the ones who use voice and the ones who use gestures to communicate and create. It is a poetic, surreal vision of the underwater world of strange fish-like creatures encountering a group of humanoid travellers from the future. The meeting of strangers takes place between the unreal world of a dream, with blurred, bended forms, eluding reason and logic, and the hyper-realist raw rationalist world.
This performance is partly an attempt to understand the frustration of Deaf people resulting from their misunderstanding by hearing people, and partly the creation of a space in which both these worlds and types of perception as well as methods of communication intertwine and influence each other. Part of the libretto is created by Ilse Jobse, a Dutch Deaf poet, singer and actress. New technologies (motion sensors, sound and light sensors programmed for “audiovisual translation”, sound and video processing) as well as vibrations, rhythms and choreography – all contribute to an entirely new and unique artistic language.
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Futurists opens the doors of the theater to the group most excluded from it: the deaf. There are 1.5 million people
in the Netherlands who are deaf or hard of hearing. Of this group, about 30,000 people depend on sign language.
Virtually none of them ever go to the theater. Why is that?
“Why should they?” says Jerzy Bielski, “there are almost no performances which are accessible to them.” “We may think
that our cultural sector is inclusive,” adds Thomas Brand, “but that’s not the case.
That became clear when we started this project.”
– DEN
(Dutch Knowledge Institute for Culture and Digital Transformation, excerpt from the article published on their website on “Fish dance…”) LINK
(…) technology enabled a construction of a new aesthetic language and inclusive artistic expression that otherwise could not
have been achieved. The experimentation with translation of sound to image and vice versa takes multiple different forms,
under one crucial condition of co-creation. No one in the team came into the project with superior knowledge
and skillset but rather with the primary goal to create a blended and mutually comprehensible form of
artistic communication. The collaborators are given agency and space to bring ideas to the workshop,
influence and impact the way the experimentation is conducted.
– Linda Jankowska
(Senior lecturer at Leeds University, UK, excerpt from the article published in Contemporary Music Review) LINK
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I really like the project. I especially enjoy the fact that everyone is on the same level as the others,
we work together as equals and not that one is less than the other. (…)
In the Netherlands hardly any deaf people perform on stage and maybe only one does it regularly or more professionally.
This should change and I believe that projects like this could contribute a lot to this.
– Ilse Jobse
(deaf performer in “Fish dance…”)
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This project is a result of the international competition by ENOA (European Network of Opera Academies, ‘Opera Creation Journey’),
which Futurists. It is being developed through a series of labs at the Dutch National Opera and Innovation Lab / Theatre Utrecht.
The premiere is planned for the first half of 2025.
Partners:
Dutch National Opera
ENOA (European Network of Opera Academies)
Innovation: Lab / Theater Utrecht
Credits:
Artistic direction – Jerzy Bielski and Thomas Brand
Concept, composition, stage directing, libretto – Jerzy Bielski
Dramaturgy, video, visuals, light design – Thomas Brand
Choreography, dramaturgy – Sandra Abouav
Audio programming, live electronics – Tatiana Rosa
Libretto – Ilse Jobse, Deaf singer
Deaf actor – Ali Shafiee
Deaf dancer – Dennis Massar
Deaf dancer – Sharon Wesseling
Deaf dancer – Pawel Moleda
Voice (soprano) – Olga Siemienczuk
Paetzold recorder – Juho Myllyla
Cello – Pau Sola Masafrets
Photos – Thomas Brand, Kim Krijnen
Supported by:
Cultuurloket DigitALL, De Nationale Opera, ENOA
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