There's plenty that I enjoy about working for Vamos, but I think a big pull for me is the company’s ethos of always wanting to learn and to question how can we do that better? It is for this reason that for the last few months we have been exploring how our work is accessible to deaf and hard of hearing audiences. When I say work, I don’t mean just the shows, but also our education programme, our web presence and our marketing.
So, yesterday I found myself on the train heading to Derby. I was invited to participate in PAD Productions (Positive About Deafness) summer workshops at Derby LIVE. The summer school was being directed by PAD Production’s founders Emily Howlett and Lara Steward and when I arrived, just before lunch, the room was buzzing. The 8 -11 year old participants were working with Jon Dafydd-Kidd in a body percussion workshop. The group were made up of both hearing and deaf children and three of the four leaders on the day were deaf.
By lunchtime I had learnt the BSL alphabet and by the end of the afternoon’s storytelling workshop I’d collected a few gems of information, including how to work with an interpreter to ensure that there is only one voice in the room at one time, and that 70% of sign language is told through the face.
So what now? Well, I will take all of my experiences from yesterday and feed them back to the team and we will look at our workshops and question how can we do that better? Personally, I think with a few small tweaks you could be seeing us in a deaf school near you very soon!
Honor Hoskins