Seeing Voices

One House, ?A Death,? Two Sisters,? One Stranger.

A powerful story of love and lust, jealousy and revenge, forgiveness and redemption devised by Solar Bear and told through movement, British Sign Language, verse, music and sound by Deaf and hearing actors.

Seeing Voices, directed and scripted by Deborah Andrews, was performed at Gilmorehill G12. Accompanied by a range of ground-breaking outreach opportunities, Seeing Voices wove together different languages and forms of communication, including BSL and Audio Description, to create a sensory experience that could be enjoyed by all.

View the gallery here.

In terms of our outreach activity, we worked with: The National Deaf Children's Society, Glasgow Women's Library, The Dance House, Hillpark Secondary School's Communication Disorder Unit and Deaf Connections. The work that we did with these groups informed the creation of the main-house production and was exhibited front of house at Gilmorehill G12 during the performance week.

Seeing Voices received an Orange Community Futures Award (in recognition of making a positive difference to the lives of people with sensory disabilities in our local community) and an Arts and Business Arts and Disability Award.

"...a powerful dynamic to the piece...an ambitious production with tremendous moments and forceful performances."
Mark Fisher - The Scotsman

"I went to see the show called 'Seeing Voices' directed by Solar Bear and I have to say that I'm impressed with the cast and the storyline. A few of us Deaf people went to see it and we related to the storyline as it's reflected to real life experiences. It is not very often to get to see a show like I've mentioned especially for us Deaf people.

All cast learned to sign as well as speaking as it was part of the story to make it more accessible to both hearing and Deaf audiences.

Others and I would like to see more of shows directed by Solar Bear Company.

One more thing, the company practice what they preached as the director is attending the BSL course and she also asked for advices on Deaf issues in order to provided the show as accurately as possible and also to make sure that Deaf audiences can follow signings in the show. More please!!!!"
Janice McCusker (Deaf) Lifelong Development Worker - Deaf Connections

"The devised production lets us increasingly grasp more and more of British Sign Language. So much so we understand much of Katrina Fisher's Katherine when at the end she speaks to us using her hands so we see her voice."
Thelma Good, EdinburghGuide.com