This project was inspired by the story 'Mid-summer nights dream' by William Shakespear. Throughout my research for this play I observed that the story is based on emotionally driven character and the results of their actions. The story is separated into locations, and in each one there is a group of characters. During the play we learn about the stories of each group which happen simultaneously, until the point where all characters meet together and the stories become one.
Stories within stories, that aim to explain to the audience each characters personality and how they interact with each other.
The suggestions for our Story were made by the children from Blanche Nevile School for Deaf, and the final outcome was constructed by Music Composers and Lorena Molina and myself as Designers.
Through interacting with the Deaf children and communicating with them in an artistic way I was inspired to produce outcomes for the final performance show that would create a visual language understood by both Hearing and Deaf audiences.
I researched plays for Deaf actors and audiences, and analysed the positive and negative factors affecting costume making for such plays. I focused on enhancing movement and creating visual metaphores through the costumes.
My aim on the project was to create characters and costumes taking under consideration Sign language,focusing on the childrens senses and try to produce an outcome that would help built communicational bridges between deaf and hearing audiences.
o Haggerty, L. (2006). ADJUSTING THE MARGINS: BUILDING BRIDGES BETWEEN DEAF AND HEARING
CULTURES THROUGH PERFORMANCE ARTS. Ph.D. Antioch University. p.36
o BSL Zone, (n.d.). Shakespeare: Found in Translation | BSL Zone. [online] Available at:
http://www.bslzone.co.uk/watch/shakespeare-found-translation/ [Accessed 8 Dec. 2016].
o Shakespeare: Found in Translation. (2014). [video] Britain: Cathy Heffernan, Louis Neethling for Mutt and Jeff Pirctures.
Music Workshops
by music composers William Carslake And Patrick Stokebridge
 Experimenting with vibrations |  Copying the leader |
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 Group and rythm |  Movement excersice |
 Building up characters |  Acting excercise |
 Copying the leader's moves |  Instruments for characters |
 Costumes and textures |  Creation of lyrics for our story |
Interacting with the children was a new experience, and this is why at the first workshop I mainly observed William Carslake's approach. I looked at the way he guided the children and how he introduced them to music. According to Carslake; "I would say that the children came up with the ideas of greatest inspiration, and so they guided us a great deal. Ultimately we created a story that incorporated their ideas. Hopefully it was a balance." William had a silver lining between the space the kids had to experiment and the goal for a final solid outcome. This better informed and prepared me to build my own approach for the next workshop which I was in charge of - The Art workshop
Story and Characters
My aim for creating characters through the childrens suggestion was to get inspired from all the ideas they discussed with me, and try putting them together in order to produce a solid background story for the characters.
It was very interesting and artisticly innovative to have the children as the 'writers' of Our story.
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Out of the children's suggestions, I created small background story for each character. The challenge was quite big because I had to use elements from both real life and a magical world.
Locations and characters in our story
The Fairy Queen
The Fairy King
The Fire Wizard
The Fairy Woods
The Fiery Woods
Art Workshops
Guiding The Children for character creation
To inform the children and inspire them to produce outcomes for the three main characters I tried apporaching each one differently than the other.
Fire Wizard: by giving the children imagery of elements reletable for this character and having them give me suggestions on what to draw. (introductiong to character creation)
Fairy King : by giving general information and imagery from his country of origin, and letting the children draw whichever element they thought would better represent the character. (introduction to symbolism)
Fairy Queen: by givng more specific information about her background and asking them to draw how they think her actual appearance is.(introduction to appearances)
The research made on each character in order to create the presentations for the childen are these below.
The Fairy King
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The Fire Wizard
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The Fairy Queen
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Designers on action
Outcomes from the Art workshops
The children responded well to all 'drawing and making' exercises. On most they showed great interest and they were able to understand the given task and produce a relevant outcome.
They interacted with each other, exchanged opinions and collaborated to produce some of the outcomes.
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The communication between me and the children was much stronger when we were producing the final pieces, as we had another strong mean of communication : Visual language
The Fairy King
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
The Fire Wizard
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The Fairy Queen
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Character And costume Designs
I focused on creating outcomes with interesting textiles and colors in order to trigger their sense of vision. I was inspired from their outcomes and tried to use similar materials and shapes with the ones they produced. I looked into costume designers for Deaf plays in order to understand how to enhance movement and body language.
Ben Harvey, (n.d.). How to create characters. [video] Available at: http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/video/how-to-create-characters [Accessed 8 Dec. 2016].
Sita Thomas, (n.d.). Movement Direction: Creating Character. [video] Available at: http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/video/movement-direction-creating-character [Accessed 8 Dec. 2016].
Vam.ac.uk, (n.d.). Designing Stage Costumes - Victoria and Albert Museum. [online] Available at: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/d/designing-stage-costumes/ [Accessed 9 Dec. 2016].
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The Fairy King
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
The Fire Wizard
The Fairy Queen
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Costume making
The Fairy King
The Fire Wizard
The Fairy Queen
 Pattern cutting |
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 Neck Line back side opening |
 Neck Line front side |
 Seams |
 Sewing neck line |
 Sewing neck line |
 Dress |
 Cutting bottom |
 Dying fabric |
 Chosen Fabrics |
 Working with Kid's Designs |
 Adding Layers of fabric |
 Creating bottom similar to drawings |
 Illusion of a green cape |
 Adding Glitter and Beads |
 Adding Leafs |
 Creating a crown out of Kids designs |
 Queen Hand Sign |
 3D sign in layers |
 Covering layers with Gold Fabric |
 English Flag and Palace Sign |
 Inside of the Crown |
 Final costume Crown |
 Making Hand costume pieces |
 Adding beads for magic spell |
 Final DesignDescribe your image. |
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 Chosen fabrics |
 Cutting First layerDescribe your image. |
 Making other Layers |
 Creating the inside skirtDescribe your image. |
 Cutting Flame shape like lines |
 Adding glitters |
 Adding Fabric lines representi Ashes |
 Creating dragon egg texture |
 Coloring dragon egg pieces |
 Dragon egg and Fire spellDescribe your image. |
 Sewing dragon egg on shouldersDescribe your image. |
 Sign for hat - adding fabric |
 Making the hat |
 Sewing pieces together |
 Lava hat side view |
 Lava hat front view |
 Glitters on Lava hat |
 Fire Spell SignDescribe your image. |
 LAva Hat Sign |
 Stars Sign |
 Walking on FireDescribe your image. |
 Costume on rehearsal |
 Costumes on rehearsal |
 Final Design |
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 Experimenting on pattern cutting |
 Pattern cutting |
 Neck line |
 Neckline from inside |
 Ironing neck line |
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 Top from correct side |
 Top from inside |
 Top from inside |
 Cutting bottom |
 Creating Sleeves |
 Adding Sleeves |
 Adding Gold Fabric Lines |
 Adding Gold Fabric lines on sleeves |
 Hand drawing pattern |
 Adding Glitter |
 Make patterns more visible |
 Dying Costumes |
 Adding Leafs on the back |
 Adding Leafs |
 Crowns Cameroon and Palace signs |
 Signs for Cameroon and palace |
 Final Crown Cameroon Flag and sign |
 Final crown King Sign |
Making the costumes that are Deaf friendly, and suitable for every child.
1. Dont cover faces and hands - needed for communicating with each other
2. Dont use materials that might destroy their Hearing aids
3. One size - any child from the class can wear
4. Easy to -put on and take off.
Final Costumes
The Fairy King
The Fire Wizard
The Fairy Queen
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Evaluation and reflection
I had two goals:
Firstly, to show elements of each characters background story though the costumes
Secondly, to create a visual images of the signs-words so they can be understood from both Hearign and Deaf audiences.
I believe that the costumes could be more appropriately delivered, by using different textures and more realistic representation of the elements achieved by the use of other materials. E.g. the Lava hat doesnt have the texture of a volcano, so a person who doesnt know the sign could translate it as 'a cone hat exploded'.
Having mentioned the above, another thing I believe I am missing is that I didnt translate every sign. E.g. The sign of explosion should have had a visual aspect representing it, because again a person who does not know the sign it would seem as if 'the hat opened'.
Finally I was not able to test my theory in the performance show since the performerms who visually represented some words were signing throughout the whole story, instead of signing only thewords that matched each costume. This is why I experimented with producing a video that would have each character sign the correct words.
Unfortunatelly at this stage the video and signs still can not be fully understood without the lyrics of the song. By filming it though, I found, there are many more opportunities for this project to develop, in terms of placing the characters in the correct order, using effects and colors, maybe recording it from different angles etc. Elements that could contribute in making the visual language stronger.
This approach supported my theory much more than the performance, and I believe that with extended research on sign language and experimentation with different textures and materials my idea of creating a visual language as a common ground for both audiences can be achieved.