Audio Process: Deaf Cheerleaders

For our process piece, we had planned on recording a deaf basketball game. This opportunity came up because Jeff’s sister is taking an ASL class and was required to attend various events as part of her grade. The interest of this subject was that is was a process similar to one that nearly everyone is familiar with (basketball), but different enough that it would bring a new experience to everyone.

Jeff: “While recording this process, I talked with my sister and her friends about ASL and the deaf community. Something I learned was that deaf people don’t think of themselves as being disabled—they just see being deaf as a different way of perceiving.”

As such, we wanted that mode of thought to be reflected in our documentary. In other words, we wanted the experience of listening to our piece to reflect the mindset of “experiencing something differently, rather than through a limited lens.” Thus, our piece is simply an unmediated piece of audio, rather than being several sounds edited together. It also has no narration and no explanation—just a different way of experiencing the process. When we listen to audio (like a radio show, for example), rarely do we feel like we are disabled. Rather, we feel as if we are perceiving a story differently than if we are reading, watching, or experiencing it first hand. So this process piece offers a unique experience, given that we're hearing but not seeing what others are seeing but not hearing.

It was decided that the clearest process that we could show in 1-2 minutes in this fashion was the halftime show, put on by one of the teams’ cheer-leading squad (all of its members were also deaf), therefore, the sound of the game was cut for this particular piece. The final buzzer was edited to be closer to the end of the routine to keep the piece brief, otherwise, the process is reflected completely without interference.

The Smokehouse video which was viewed for this class showed a process that was executed by someone with a different perception of the world around him. This was a clear focus which we wanted to take advantage of in this piece. The documentary titled In the Land of the Deaf by Nicolas Philibert is a film about how the deaf do not lack a vital part of the human experience. Rather, they develop a richly unique culture because of the creative restrictions under-which they are obliged to labor.

Our piece seeks to add a layer thereupon by observing this same culture auditorily, providing us with yet another creative restriction as listeners. Perhaps our next piece will be a silent documentary showing how we made this piece, but that may just be too absurd.

https://soundcloud.com/authorman12/halftime-of-the-deaf