ACOF 2002 Participant - Mark Zadro

Mark Zadro

Mark Zadro's Theatre of the Deaf, was a composition written for ACOF 2002.

 

...This particular metaphoric world that observes puppets becomes quite strong and gains further momentum in the image of an orchestra...

Program Notes - Theatre of the Deaf

My main motivation for writing this piece arises from the fact that my partner’s sister (Josie) is profoundly deaf. Hence, this piece comes from living for the last 8-9 years in the midst of a family that must deal with the difficulties of deafness.

Theatre of the deaf is a piece that has had a very different evolution to the way I would have usually approached orchestral writing in the past. Whereas before, the generative force of any music written was propelled by a philosophical idea - theatre of the deaf, on the other hand, is written by starting with a real life situation (as described above) and then setting up motives symbolising aspects of the situation, then organising them into shapes in order to create the piece.

As it turned out, I received very positive feedback for the piece to 'be'. As well as this, the organisation put me in contact with a hearing-impaired Australian/Cambodian poet, Sokong Kim. Sokong and I have exchanged many emails since making contact. I have learned a lot and gained many ideas and affirmations from our dialogue. Sokong’s comments on my ideas were particularly insightful and deepened my understanding of my subject matter. Here is a brief attempt at trying to put into words how the piece was constructed.

Firstly, I started with a list of individual elements or ideas that arose out of either reading poetry (written by hearing-impaired poets) or, just taking things that I have thought of from my own experiences.

One idea was something that my partner had told me years ago about growing up with her sister (Josie) who is profoundly deaf. She described Josie’s frustration of trying to communicate as to be like someone screaming from within a glass dome and no one ever hearing you. Sokong added an extra level of understanding to this image. He said "Communication - This is one of the main issues… Screaming within a glass dome is a nice image. Not only is it 'silent', the emptiness of the dome represents nothingness. No language in the mind to make sense of the world. I have some friends who have very little English despite the fact they can sign. But what are they signing? There’s no English in their minds to define that. It’s not chaos in the mind I believe, more like emptiness. Chaos comes within the heart, where we westerners assign all our emotions. When you can’t communicate, of course you’d feel frustrated."

Fragments of poetry (written by deaf poets) that resonated with me include: "a silent world where quiet is profound", "silent unknown rhythm that I could never share", "it is similar to a Gold fish in a bowl", "I heard loud music…in my dream" - all these extracts as well as many others expressed "musical" notions within a "silent" world.

But one poem started to shape the ideas for the piece I was about to write. I got attached to it because of the images it painted; it was a short poem called Robots by Arturo Filet:

I look at hearing people talking.
I cannot hear them.
I look at their lips
flopping.
I cannot understand
Their faces have no expression
They look like Robots to me.

This poem’s imagery started to make me perceive a fantastical world - I suppose somewhat stylised, where deaf people perceived hearing people as puppets - 'I look at their lips flopping … their faces have no expression' - this idea of puppets then cultivated the idea of 'pulling strings' both literally and figuratively. The hearing world is so susceptible to manipulation by the assault of audiovisual cocktails that are dished up.

This particular metaphoric world that observes puppets becomes quite strong and gains further momentum in the image of an orchestra - with instrumentalists pulling strings in order to make their instruments speak and, the Conductor as the master puppeteer dictating who speaks, and when.

Silence against the ever present pulse of a Heartbeat was another element. And this constant pulse plays against a multitude of pulses that happen simultaneously around it - sometimes trying to fight the inner-pulse of the heartbeat - trying to dictate its pace - trying to race it off into a swirling frenzy - etc. - again here, the image of the puppeteer fits nicely.

Low sounds which are felt rather than heard are important to the hearing-impaired world as a source of vibration to be felt. Bodies resonating - an important feeling because it can indicate whether someone is talking in the room. One can feel the vibrations in varying ways - through the lips, or through a held object like a tissue box - something that hearing people are not alert to with subtle sounds - their ears tend to dominate the experience - cancelling other senses out.

From this point on I started to try and concoct a 'brew' from these ingredients. I knew I wanted to create a fantastical world - of puppeteers and puppets, the heartbeat (pulse) and the counter beats which try to dominate it - the image of something screaming to be heard and understood through all this: first an individual voice - the clarinet, then gaining momentum to be joined by many later. And silence.

I chose the harp to be a personalised symbol of the puppeteer - it visually presents strings being pulled the best of all instruments. I managed to find a weird sound that rattled and buzzed on the harp (rather than the homogenised sound that it usually has) to represent a more tactile physicality in sound - so as to focus on the 'vibrating' essence of sound.

Bass Drum and Timpani are used to represent the heartbeat that is played at a slightly slower tempo than the 'other' pulses of the piece - these instruments also produce the sense of vibrations rather than just sound.

I have tried to make sure the piece does not seem sad, or even happy for that matter - it is theatrical, fantastical - it is, to me, the 'theatre' of the deaf in sound.