By Margaret Lipman (March 19, 2004)

In a prelude to the afternoon theatrical production of Celebration of the Senses, Tim McCarty, president of Quest: Arts for Everyone and director of Celebration, worked with a group of high school students to explore the different ways of interpreting language and poetry. The theme of McCarty’s workshop was how to apply theatre, mime, and sign language techniques to literature. The GMHS students attended the workshop based on their interest in creative and performing arts. Surprisingly, many of the attendees did not have prior knowledge of American Sign Language (ASL), but were eager to learn about the use of silent dramatic expression for description and narration.
 

McCarty has had much experience in the area of unconventional literary interpretation. He has worked at Gallaudet University's Model Secondary School for the Deaf for 21 years and served for the last eight as the artistic director of the school’s Performing Arts program. He founded Quest: Arts for Everyone in 1997 to showcase the talents of the disabled artists and performers, who are still drastically underrepresented in most areas of drama and art. All of Quest’s productions have a diverse cast and include both deaf and hearing actors of all ethnicities.  Tim McCarty was joined in Tuesday morning’s workshop by Kris daCosta, an ASL instructor here at George Mason. ASL was used frequently in the session, but was verbally translated for and by the students. The workshop began with ‘warm-ups’ to accustom the students to facial expressions and body language. Their concentration and attentiveness were tested by a game of mimicking each other’s subtle facial expressions. Next, they had to harness their emotions to show bold gestures of love, hate, and disgust.

Shira Grabelsky and Mike Harper, professional  actors from Quest, used speech, sign, and movement  to help students experience poetry in a new way in  an assembly Tuesday in honor of Deaf History  Heritage Month. (Photo by Kory Lloyd)

From there, the students broke into several groups and began analyzing the poems "Language for the Eye" and "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," written by Dorothy Miles and Wallace Stevens, respectively. Even though many students had little or no ASL experience, they were able to use universal gestures and movement to represent both the abstract and concrete images of the poems. McCarty called this fun, challenging approach the "process of true knowing." He guided the students to a more exact understanding of the poems’ themes and imagery, a process that he said is helpful when scrutinizing any book. Although the workshop lasted for just under two hours, many students came away with a deeper knowledge of communication. "It was an interesting experience, but I think it would be easier to understand if you had taken sign language," commented ASL student Sarah Jacobs. McCarty seemed pleased with the result of the workshop, as well. When questioned about his passion for this unusual method of teaching, McCarty replied, "It’s what I love to do, to share it with as many people as possible, enhancing reading and poetry by going beyond the words."

Jessica Cartwright, center, and Matt Langford,  right, work together to express a difficult passage  from Wallace Stevens’s poem “13 Ways to Look at  a Blackbird” as Tim McCarty, president of Quest,  during a workshop McCarty conducted to help  students apply theater, mime, and sign language  techniques to literature. (Photo by Margaret Lipman)

Needless to say, the students in attendance certainly learned a lot about alternative methods of expression, and undoubtedly gained a new respect for the deaf and disabled artists who use silent expression as their primary mode of communication. By the conclusion of the workshop, all were eagerly awaiting the performance of Celebration of the Sense, and were curious to see just how much the morning’s supplementary ASL experience would help them to better understand literature, drama, and the world around them.