Deaf Japanese artist, Chisato Minamimura, premieres work online TODAY to commemorate Hiroshima Day

This week London-based deaf Japanese performance artist, Chisato Minamimura, will be premiering online a short filmed excerpt from her work ‘Scored in Silence’.

‘Scored in Silence’ originally premiered in 2019 at the British Council Edinburgh Festival Fringe showcase and tells the haunting experiences of deaf Japanese people who survived the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Despite lockdown and the current restrictions at theatres and cinemas, Chisato felt compelled to commemorate 2020 as the 75th anniversary of the bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and to continue telling these stories to international audiences.

And so on Thursday 6^th August – Hiroshima Day – there will be a special excerpt from ‘Scored in Silence’ available to view on Youtube for 24 hours only, from 8:15am Japan time/00.15am UK time when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

Later on in the year, on 11th November, to mark Remembrance Day, there will be a screening of the full-length film version of “Scored in Silence” along with a live Q&A with Chisato and the team.

The show is a solo digital sign language theatre performance which uses cutting-edge technology such as Holo-guaze© a projection material that creates a 3D holographic illusion, live performance, BSL sign, sign-mime, animation and film footage.

I caught up with Chisato to find out more about this new digital season of work.

Hi Chisato, for those who haven’t come across your work, could you tell us a bit about the art you produce?

I am a deaf performance artist and BSL art guide.  My current artistic practice is multi-disciplinary, and makes use of dance, movement, BSL, sign mime, digital technology, and sensory experience.  I try to combine all of these elements to make my own new style of performance.

I love visual art, and have an art degree, which means over the years I’ve learned a lot from, and been inspired by, many different artists and artworks. My work as a BSL art guide means I often have to undertake in-depth research of particular art works, thus bringing me into contact with lots of new pieces and artists.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?

I grew up in Tokyo, Japan.  My first language is spoken Japanese.  At the time at which I was growing up, and I believe it was also similar in Britain, deaf children weren’t allowed to sign at school.  The education that I was receiving was fairly substandard, and so my parents decided to move me to a hearing school.  I had deaf friends in similar situations – all being educated in the oral tradition, however every Saturday, we would get together, and we would – in a sense, create our own deaf theatre – we were playing at theatre.

When I later went to university, my eyes were really opened when I began to see people signing. At first I was unsure what I was seeing, but then realised it was sign language – something I’d hitherto had no knowledge of.

From there, I began to take an interest, I began to learn, and I found that where previously I had to work really hard to lip-read conversations, suddenly sign language opened up a new world of communication to me.  Thus, Japanese Sign Language became my second language.

Now in Britain, I don’t speak in English, but I do use BSL, so my third language is British Sign Language.

Why did you want to create a performance piece about Hiroshima day? Can you tell us more about its significance?

‘Scored in Silence’ was created to unpack the effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the deaf people that were living in those cities, and survived the tragedies.  It tells their stories, it archives parts of their lives, it captures their emotions and what they went through.

This year, 2020, marks 75 years since the end of the Second World War and thus the 75th anniversary of the events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and so I wanted to pay homage to, and show respect for those people that lived through the nuclear detonations. The 6th August is such an important date for all of us to remember what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

​How easy or hard was it to collect the stories from deaf survivors? How did you find those people?

Independent of whether one is deaf or hearing, if one was alive at the time of the events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, one is now very old.  For many, many years, those survivors, particularly the deaf survivors had their stories hidden away – they had not been able to talk about or share their experiences.

However, I was very lucky to be able to gain an insight into the stories of the deaf survivors, via a friend of mine who had a connection to a small network of older deaf people in Japan.  Hence why in 2017, I was able to visit Japan and meet with the deaf survivors.

Who did you work with to plan/prepare the devising, filming and devising? What was this process like?

I undertook the interviews with the older deaf Japanese myself, and we conducted these in Japanese sign language.  Interestingly however, some of the signs that the interviewees used were archaic signs.  The interviewees told their stories with great passion – they were very visceral in their retelling of events and emotions.  I wonder if the empathy that existed between us as deaf peers helped this happen – perhaps making the interview process smoother and more effective.

Interestingly when I initially undertook the interviews, it wasn’t my intention that they would ultimately be part of the performance piece, but when conducting the interviews, I couldn’t help but be struck by the amazing power they held, and so they subsequently became part of what we see in ‘Scored in Silence’.

Also, it’s interesting to now reflect on the creative process of making ‘Scored in Silence’ – at the time, I was creating a live performance piece, but I thankfully had the thought about how could I document it, and chose to have the performance filmed.

I’m thankful for that now, because with the current COVID-19 situation, we’ve had to adapt to a new digital landscape, and so although I can’t offer a live performance of ‘Scored in Silence’ with an audience fully experiencing all sensory elements, I am able to at least offer a chance to see the filmed footage.

Did you discover anything interesting or surprising from your research with the deaf Hiroshima survivors?

The stories that I was told by the deaf survivors were powerful – they were fuelled with such suffering. Perhaps I felt a resonance because I’m also deaf.  Maybe I had a unique sense of empathy?

Being told the stories of the deaf survivors made me consider what life would have been like if I had been born at the same time as them, and how just because I was born later, how very different my life has been.

I was also struck by the sense of oppression – deaf people are still oppressed now, but I was led to consider whether my older deaf peers were oppressed even more?  I was also very struck by the question of why this oppression continues?

All of this, combined with the power and visceral nature of the deaf survivors’ stories confirmed to me that I had to ensure these stories were passed on.

What do you hope the audience discover or experience watching the performance?

I would never want to put too much pressure on an audience to think or feel something specific, but I do want them to go away from the performance having received something valuable.  For example, after live performances, it’s common for discussions take place with audience members, and interestingly a comment that often comes up is that people understand post-war life is hard for all,  but they had never considered the greater impact on deaf and disabled people.

Also, it was interesting that when I toured to Canada, a lot of deaf people came to see the show, and afterwards asked who created ‘Scored in Silence’.  They were flabbergasted upon realising that me – Chisato, a deaf woman, had done so!  They had no idea that it was feasible for a project to be deaf led, they were so shocked by this.

And so it was interesting that in a sense, when they learned that I, a deaf woman, had created ‘Scored in Silence’, it perhaps opened their eyes to seeking out opportunities for themselves. Ultimately, if an audience member takes something personally valuable away after watching my performance, then I’m happy.

For me, art and society are implicitly connected.  Art can make change; art can change us.  That’s what I hope to achieve.

An excerpt from ‘Scored in Silence’  will be screened on Youtube on Thursday 6 August, 08:15 Japan time/00:15 UK time. You can watch the premiere on Thursday 6^th August by using the following YouTube link:

https://youtu.be/NxL761I72WM

Photography by Mark Pickthall