People of the Eye//Break Yourself

THE DEAF AND HEARING ENSEMBLE
PEOPLE OF THE EYE – 7.30PM
“Of course, you shouldn’t use ‘sign language’.”

Inspired by real events, this personal story follows a family finding their way through the Deaf world. A story about parents, about sisters, and about the complex love that binds families together. Using projections, sound, live performance, and creative accessibility, this unique, poignant performance is about memories, feelings of isolation, and finding the joy in difference.

This piece is accessible to D/deaf and hearing audiences through the use of British Sign Language, Spoken English and creative captioning.

Written by Erin Siobhan Hutching (sections devised with The Deaf & Hearing Ensemble).

Supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

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IRA BRAND
BREAK YOURSELF – 9PM
“The thing I like about Springsteen is that all his songs are about blue-collar, American, working class, men. You know, men who work on the railroads, and in lumberyards. Real men. I’m not really that kind of guy.”

Meet Ollie. He’s a graphic designer. But he wants to be Bruce.

Break Yourself is a piece about the performance of identity and of gender. Performed in male drag, it is about the relationship between power and desire, the complex landscape of male and female sexual desire, and the desire to be something ‘other’. And it’s about Bruce Springsteen.

It is also an experiment in constructing personas and alternative identities. A risky, dishonest, head-first, whole-hearted, and perhaps slightly desperate attempt to try and be something we have never been before.

This performance will be BSL interpreted.

Commissioned by Ovalhouse. Supported by The Yard Theatre and using public funding by Arts Council England.