A new experimental theatre experience by writer and lecturer Sharon Clark, and artist and creative director Jack Hardiker-Bresson, has introduced a new form of creative captioning to make storytelling more accessible.
Premiering at FRAMELESS in London, ‘The Whale’ reimagines the literary classic Moby Dick, blending live performance with technology, art, music and audience exploration to push beyond the boundaries of traditional theatre.
The project was one of nine to receive £50,000 (€57,000) in the first round of Immersive Arts funding – a UK-wide initiative supporting artists to make and share immersive work.
Designed for audiences aged 12+, the 20-minute experience is a showcase event, pioneering a new hybrid form of theatre combining large-scale 180° projections, live performance, a physical set, spatial sound and an original score.
A specially developed system of spatial creative captioning weaves text directly into the environment. Developed with Deaf, deafened and hard of hearing communities, it responds to a growing demand for captioned experiences.
In ‘The Whale’, captioning is a core creative element, integrated into the storytelling. Every aspect of the production has been designed with the audience’s experience of viewing them in mind, from character movement to audience positioning. They are creative and expressive, using visual effects to reflect tone and emotion, like an animated picture book.
Learnings from this experimental run with a live audience will inform and drive the creation of a full-length production at a later date.