Interpreters share the magic of Shakespeare with deaf pupils
“SHAKESPEARE is universal. It is so exciting to see Shakespeare being made accessible to Deaf children,” said Kseniya Filinova-Bruton, founder and director of the Shakespeare Schools Festival South Africa.
For the first time, two signlanguage interpreters were on hand to make the rich language of Shakespeare accessible to a group of deaf pupils from the Dominican School for Deaf Children at the fifth Shakespeare Schools Festival, which took place at the Artscape this week.
Pupils from four city schools performed 40-minute abridged versions of three of Shakespeare’s plays, with two schools rendering different productions of one play.
Vista Nova High School and the Lalela Project performed different interpretations of Romeo and Juliet, Chris Hani Arts and Culture Focus School performed Hamlet, and Sans Souci Girls High performed As you Like It.
The 16 pupils from the Dominican School for Deaf Children, who are in grades 9, 10 and 12, arrived at Artscape on 5pm Wednesday before the show began so the two sign language interpreters – South African Sign Language interpreter, Marsanne Selzer and visiting Irish artist and interpreter Amanda Coogan – could prepare them with a short workshop.
The workshop ensured the children would understand Shakespeare and what the plays were about when they watched the plays on the stage. By the time 7pm arrived, the children were excited and ready to watch the plays.
Filinova-Bruton said it was exciting to see how the festival had grown from eight schools in 2011 to 52 schools this year.
“I am very excited to open theatre and Shakespeare to the Deaf communities who could not access the theatre before. We want to make it accessible to them.”
Before the show started, teacher Colleen Bohringer said that the Grade 9 and Grade 12 classes were studying The Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet respectively, and the Grade 10 class would be introduced to Shakespeare later in the year.
At the end of the festival, Filinova-Bruton awarded each pupil from the participating schools with certificates of recognition, saying each school was a “winner”.