Early this year Solar Bear was invited to take part in a TEDx event, organised by students at the University of Strathclyde. The theme of the event was ‘Orchestrating Emotions’. Would we like to give a talk?
My first thought was to ask one of the deaf artists we know to give the talk in British Sign Language. I approached Moira McAuslan, one of the graduates from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s BA Performance in BSL and English. Moira had been one of the cast in ‘The Arrival’, and you can also see her in the BSL information video on the ‘Productions’ page of our new website. Luckily, she was interested! She wanted to tell her own story about her experiences growing up, when her access to British Sign Language was limited, and how that changed later in life.
Moira and I worked with Sign Language Interpreter Yvonne Strain, who translated Moira’s talk into English and provided a live voice-over. It was important to us to make sure this was fully integrated with what Moira was doing, and to convey in English as accurately as possible the depth, emotion and imagery of Moira’s talk.
How did it go? Well, there’s only one way to answer that. Watch the talk. Pay attention to Moira’s story. It’s powerful, brilliant, compelling. An argument for the importance of British Sign Language and a celebration of it too. Please share it as widely as you can – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGc-h_o_Xn8 .
Jonathan Lloyd
Creative Director
