Making Multiple Deaf Worlds Intelligible: A Posthumanist Arts-based Cartography of Apple Time

Abstract

In this paper, I provide an arts-based posthumanist cartography of a theatre play, Apple Time performed by deaf youth in Regina, Saskatchewan. This play was coconstructed by deaf youth performers, two deaf adults, a hearing teacher, and a hearing director. Apple Time premiered in Regina, Saskatchewan on June 2, 2018, and was remounted again at the Globe Theatre (Regina) in February 2019 and again at the SoundOff Festival in Edmonton, Alberta. The arts-based cartography examines intelligibility as a methodological problem as posited by Graif (2018), in which the actions of deaf children and youth often remain invisible due to the ontological position that perception of the world is predicated upon the ability to hear. Intelligibility as a methodological problem poses a challenge to the deficit perspective commonly held by families and service providers working with deaf children and youth (Glickman & Hall, 2019). The performers in this play were able to re-align audience perceptions through the presentation of their inner worlds and preoccupations, thereby making their multiple deaf worlds more intelligible.