A positive sign: How BSL interpreted concerts work

Our growing understanding of the importance of accessibility is clear in the rise in numbers of interpreted, audio described and relaxed performances on offer at the moment, but there is still a long way to go before accessibility becomes the norm. I caught up with Electric Voice Theatre artistic director Frances M Lynch and British Sign Language Interpreter Lauren ahead of their concert with Stroud Green Festival this weekend to talk about what goes into an accessible performance, and what you can do if you’re looking to make your next concert, festival or event more accessible.

This Sunday (24 July) Lynch, as well as tenor Laurence Panter and baritone Gwion Thomas, will be joined by Lister to tell the story of influential 19th century scientist Mary Somerville, author of one of the 19th century‘s best-selling science books of the 19th century, and the first person ever to be described in print as a 'scientist'.

Could you each give me a bit of background on your career so far?

Lauren: I kind of fell into being an interpreter. I was a learning support assistant working in a college with groups of students with additional needs. There were two deaf young men in one of the groups that I was supporting so I found an evening class to learn British Sign Language (BSL) and started studying for my Level 1. I fell in love with the language and qualified as an interpreter in 2011.

Frances: Electric Voice Theatre has been around since 2013 doing contemporary music by living composers. Over the last few years that's we've become more interested in women as role models from history and connecting them with women now who are working in both science and music, hence the focus on Mary Somerville in this weekend’s concert.

We’ve done the Edinburgh Fringe Festival a few times and in 2017 we wanted to do a touch tour [giving the audience access to the stage and set before a performance to help them engage with the production] as well as BSL interpretation alongside our performance. At the time the festival did not particularly promote accessibility and it took us quite a long time to persuade the venue. Eventually they agreed, so we were the first company ever to do a touch tour at Edinburgh Fringe. From there we started using BSL all the time while touring as well as offering a touch tour on every performance and integrated audio description.

Everything went on to Zoom in 2020 due to the pandemic, and that is when we first met Lauren.

Lauren, could you walk us through how you usually prepare to interpret a performance?

Lauren: When working with Frances, she’ll put together scripts and schedules of the whole concert. Then I’ll try to join the performers’ rehearsals or run throughs, so I've got an idea of the piece. I'll also ask Frances to also send me clips of the songs so that I can match the sound with the lyrics. BSL and English have such different structures linguistically, so it's not necessarily signing word for word. I’ll think about what visual pictures I'm going to make, and I might make notes on some of the lyrics. I’ll keep practising and listening until I can join the final rehearsal, then we’re ready for the performance.

Frances: Putting together concert scripts is something that I would never have done before because, as performers, we would make up anything we’d talk about as we went along. It’s important for interpretation because, while we do go off script occasionally, Lauren is still prepared generally for what we're going to say, particularly with the scientific words that will come up in Saturday’s concert.

It’s been a really good discipline; I’ve learned to plan in more detail. I've always been one for really focusing on the music and then letting anything else that needed to be said in between just kind of happen, and I’d certainly never written all the words of all the songs before. Now I have to do that I actually find it really helpful - it can make you think about the music differently because you're revisiting it and looking at it in a different way.

Frances, is there anything you do differently as a performer when having your performance interpreted by Lauren?

Being interpreted alters how you think about the performance because you're thinking about there being another performer as well as people who are making music. In our performance at Stroud Green Festival there are three singers and Lauren, so I think about the show as having four performers and look at how that's going to work.

You’re also thinking about where people’s eye-line is, and where you want them to look and I have to think about what my hands are doing in a way that perhaps I wouldn't have done. As this performance is based around Mary Somerville’s book On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, we're actually going to be reading from her book which requires two hands and makes signing more difficult.

It just makes you think in a different way, and I think it's a really good discipline to work within those parameters.

What are some of the things concert and festival organisers must consider when working with a BSL interpreter?

Lauren: It's always great for me to have a script for the whole concert, lyrics for any songs and a recording of the music I’ll be interpreting so I can think about intonation and what instruments are included and how I can interpret them in instrumental sections. It’s important for me to talk with Frances beforehand, and she has always been available for me to drop an e-mail or have a quick zoom meeting if I've got any questions about the script or am not sure of anything, so it's always good to be able to stay in contact.

There will be different things that you need depending on the venue, but you always need to ask yourself: where is the interpreter going to be positioned? Can all audience members see them? If there are deaf audience members, where's their eye line going to be in terms of where the interpreter is positioned and what’s going on onstage?

Frances: I always have to make sure, if we’re in a venue with lighting, that I've actually told the venue not to switch off the light on the interpreter. Sometimes they will see ‘blackout’ written on the script and turn everything out! Also, make sure the audience is organised with reserved seats for people who need to see the interpreter properly.

Venues aren’t used to BSL interpretation when it comes to classical music but when you think about it, at operas and choral concerts you often can't hear words anyway and an interpreter would be perfect. It’s not just for people who are deaf, it serves another purpose altogether on another level, it's artistry and it's part of the art that you're presenting. The music and the movements and the emotion are all bound together. If it does anything at all, it enhances any concert for everyone. I've had people haven't needed interpretation as a service, come up to me to say they were only watching Lauren!

Lauren, you’re having a very busy summer interpreting performances of different genres. How does interpreting classical music compare to interpreting other music genres like pop music?

Lauren: Everything got cancelled for two years so I’ve said yes to absolutely everything and now I'm looking at my diary wondering when I’ll be able to sleep!

It’s a similar process of listening, practicing and going to rehearsals if I can across music genres. My music taste is eclectic anyway, so I enjoy the work that Frances does as much as I would enjoy pop and rock. Frances has composed some of the pieces for this concert and it’s been wonderful to learn them from scratch with her.

Frances: It's good fun. Lauren shows us how to do some of the signs so that, at some of the high points in the music, we can all do the same gestures. I’ve realized that BSL makes dramatic work terribly easy, because all the gestures are already there.

Frances, you’ve set some of the music in the programme. Did you and Lauren do anything differently when working with texts relating to science and maths rather than the more emotive subjects usually approached in classical music?

Frances: We had to spend a bit of time talking about what the science is in order to get to the best way of communicating it, which is kind of like the process that I go through when I’m setting the music. This subject matter is actually really tricky because you want to use scientific words when it's important for people to know them, but you need the audience to understand what they mean.

Lauren: I had to become an accounting machine in the last rehearsal that we did! Frances challenges me in a completely different way to how a rapper may challenge me, but it's still challenging.

What’s one thing you wish the music industry knew about making performances accessible?

Lauren: I don't think it's particularly difficult to do, I think it's more about awareness that there will be deaf people that want to go to concerts and shows. It should just be something that’s there so that deaf people don't have to check with the venue.

I think the recognition of BSL is definitely growing, with the BSL act going through parliament, with deaf actress Rose Ayling-Ellis being on Strictly Come Dancing, and with interpreters at concerts and festivals people are becoming much more aware of it.

Frances: Getting somebody to come in to do British Sign language with your show is a privilege, it's an honour and it makes the show better - so why wouldn't you do it?

There's a lot more awareness around BSL now and I think classical music is missing a trick here. There's a whole lot of people who would think BSL interpretation is incredible, not just people with hearing difficulties, but people who would find it really mesmerising. There are a lot of people that worry about their first trip to a concert or an opera, but with interpretation you've got someone who's showing and explaining what’s going on. I just think people are dumb to not be doing it.

‘The Somerville Connexion’ will be performed as part of Stroud Green Festival on 7.30pm this Sunday (24 July 2022) at Holy Trinity Gardens, London. You can book tickets online here or buy them on the door.