Performing Deaf Culture

The (Changing) Role of the Audience

Abstract

‘Performativity’ and ‘performance’ are key concepts in sign language literature and Deaf theatre, which both unveil the ideological and epistemological limits of such terms as ‘language’ and ‘literature’ and invite to consider the body itself as text. Becauseof itsoralnatureandface-to-facetransmission,whichatfirsttookplace mainly within Deaf clubs, this peculiar type of literature was not preserved until the advent of film and digital technologies. Indeed, the latter finally allowed to fix what was once transient and transitory, capturing signs and making it possible even to set up an archive. However, this very event has brought about contrasting effects on sign literature, heavily affecting the way it is composed, transmitted and received by the audience, now separated from the artist. Paradoxically, while increasing sign language literature audience, film technology has also alienated the latter, as Krentz (2006) observes. Another issue closely related to the audience/ performance relationship is that of translation, examined, among the others, by the Flying Words Project, a creative duo made up of a hearing and a deaf.