Barwki i Słyszki. Opera binauralna.

Con­ver­sa­tions about colours and shapes with visu­al­ly impaired adults and chil­dren were the direct impulse for cre­at­ing the con­cept of this opera per­for­mance. The knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence of blind peo­ple con­tained with­in it, togeth­er with the bin­au­r­al sys­tem, will sup­port our audi­to­ry per­cep­tion and attentiveness.

Can you talk about colours with a blind per­son? You can, and it is well worth doing. From a per­son with visu­al impair­ment you can learn about colours far more than a ful­ly sight­ed per­son might know. The expe­ri­ence of real­is­ing artis­tic projects togeth­er with visu­al­ly impaired peo­ple is above all about con­ver­sa­tions. It was pre­cise­ly these con­ver­sa­tions about colours and shapes with visu­al­ly impaired adults and chil­dren that were the direct impulse for cre­at­ing the con­cept of this opera per­for­mance. The knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence of blind peo­ple con­tained with­in it, togeth­er with the bin­au­r­al sys­tem, will sup­port our audi­to­ry per­cep­tion and atten­tive­ness. At the same time, I hope, they will also sen­si­tise us to the world and needs of blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed peo­ple. A par­tic­u­lar­ly inspir­ing role in this process is played by Marek Reiss — a guide at the Invis­i­ble Exhi­bi­tion, a won­der­ful sto­ry­teller, and also an actor (which he prob­a­bly would not have become had he not lost his sight). It is his sto­ry — a nar­ra­tive drawn from his own expe­ri­ence of grad­u­al­ly los­ing his sight, a sto­ry about colours dis­ap­pear­ing from his field of vision (lit­er­al­ly) one by one — that became the direct impulse for cre­at­ing this form, large­ly son­ic and musi­cal. And although it is a per­for­mance about colours, it is musi­cal for a rea­son. Tim­bre is, after all, a cat­e­go­ry that oper­ates in both the domain of sight and the domain of hearing. 

The simul­ta­ne­ous exis­tence of the phe­nom­e­non of opti­cal colour and tonal tim­bre, and the aware­ness that the loss of sight caus­es oth­er sens­es (often hear­ing) to take over cer­tain per­cep­tu­al func­tions, were the inspi­ra­tion for bring­ing togeth­er the worlds of hear­ing and see­ing through music, visu­al art and the­atre, and for cre­at­ing the con­cept of an opera per­for­mance that tells — through the inter­play of sounds and words — the play of colours, shapes and lights. This is a spe­cif­ic form of audio descrip­tion, in which not only words, colour names, shape names or rela­tion­ships between them are used. The aim is a per­for­mance that is acces­si­ble to blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed peo­ple while also broad­en­ing the knowl­edge of those with full vision. And at the same time — one that speaks a lan­guage close to children. 

Bar­w­ki i słysz­ki is a sim­ple sto­ry about colours and abstract shapes that one day begin to dis­ap­pear. Not a cheer­ful sit­u­a­tion — but on the whole, a uni­ver­sal one. And as in life: sad­ness and grav­i­ty often mix with humour, irony, joy and play. As always in such sit­u­a­tions, what helps is: per­spec­tive, a sense of humour, art and the con­nec­tions formed. From even the most dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion, a way out can be found. Here the world of sounds and music begins to act in a mean­ing­ful way. Impro­vi­sa­tion and con­tem­po­rary small vocal forms play a par­tic­u­lar role in the musi­cal and son­ic lay­er of the opera: songs, tunes and impro­vi­sa­tions. Instru­men­tal inter­ludes are also impro­vised, as are dia­logues that, though orig­i­nal­ly giv­en a fixed shape, are freely and flex­i­bly spo­ken and sung by the actors and soloists. And a graph­ic score becomes one of the protagonists. 

Part of the oper­a’s son­ic mate­r­i­al will be per­formed live, and part will be played from a record­ing. These planes inter­min­gle and inter­pen­e­trate, so the lis­ten­er and audi­ence mem­ber should expect a per­for­mance with ele­ments of a radio play. Hence the sub­ti­tle “bin­au­r­al opera”. The bin­au­r­al sys­tem (from Latin bi — dou­ble, auris — ear) is a tech­nol­o­gy fre­quent­ly used in work with blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed peo­ple as an edu­ca­tion­al aid. This tech­nol­o­gy enables the lis­ten­er to pre­cise­ly locate in space the acoustic sig­nals that have been record­ed, there­by cre­at­ing the son­ic illu­sion of being in the place where the record­ing was made. Bin­au­r­al tech­nol­o­gy allows for very care­ful and sen­si­tive man­age­ment of sound. Thanks to these pos­si­bil­i­ties, every sound can be heard very pre­cise­ly and selec­tive­ly, while at the same time offer­ing the chance for com­plete focus and the full expe­ri­ence of music and the son­ic event. 

Dates:

21 Sep­tem­ber (Sat­ur­day) 11:00, 13:00

22 Sep­tem­ber (Sun­day) 11:00, 12:30, 14:00

23 Sep­tem­ber (Mon­day) 9:30

24 Sep­tem­ber (Tues­day) 9:30, 11:00, 13:00

Text: Anna Kierkosz

Per­form­ers:

Hash­tag Ensemble: 

Pro­duc­tion:

Tickets

30 PLN