Carbon Movements: Relational Dramaturgy in Deaf and Hearing Dance Creation

The authors revisit how Deaf and choreographic languages were resonantly related in Carbon Movement, a Deaf dance-theatre work with vibrotactile interaction from 2023. Here, we return to the work through two alternating perspectives:(1) the spectator experience of a hearing, disabled dramaturg and (2) the collaborative creation process of the Deaf performer, Connor, and the hearing choreographer, Ainsley. The finished choreography offers a score of human-carbon relationship. The performer enters an unknown space, explores and shapes it with desire, is destabilized by environmental responses, and learns to listen with sensory and relational care. Similarly, Conner and Ainsley entered their collaboration with openness about what they each did not know about choreography, Deaf communication, vibrotactile technology/perception, and accessibility. Helping one another learn American Sign Language or choreographic language through creative exploration, they discovered movement-based and Deaf-centric ways of communicating, collaborating, and knowing together. These process dramaturgical discoveries were transferred to the compositional dramaturgy of the stage work, affecting the performer, the environment, and the spectators through an interactive, vibrotactile score that invites multisensory and relational perception.