Archive for the ‘Review’ Category

November 28th, 2008 By Tony Posted in Comedy, Performing Arts, Review

DVD REVIEW: Characterful & Joymonger

I first saw the show Characterful & Joymonger, in its edited version on the ABC, over a week ago. I assumed it would be a one off broadcast of a live show by one of my favourite comedians, Adam Hills. Imagine my joy when a search on the ABC site for information about the program, revealed that it was out on DVD.

Adam Hills is an Australian comedian, best known for his work on the music trivia show, Spicks and Specks. Not only is Adam a big hearted, good natured comedian, unafraid of diversity, watch any of his DVD’s or TV’s shows to witness the fact [and how much he actually loves people], he is also “Deaf Aware”.

He often has a sign interpreter at some of his shows. Characterful & Joymonger [the DVD] not only features a sign language interpreter, whom we see often, but…… but Adam incorporates her into his show, drawing the audiences attention to her, giving the audience a bit of Deaf Awareness, publicly showing his appreciation of her work, and making her repeat signs for the rude words. Yes, I know it is the usual Hearing thing to be fascinated by linguistic differences in swearing, but Adam is a big hearted guy who does it in a genuine spirit of curiosity and good natured humour.

As with any DVD, there are extras, and they are worth viewing. Especially the backstage shenanigans that feature the said sign language interpreter, and asking an elderly member of the audience of she was OK with his swearing. Her blithe reply was, “She’s heard worse.” Summat like that. AND the exchange with someone he thought was Deaf but turned out to be another sign language interpreter.

But what sets Characterful & Joymonger apart from the plethora of captioned and subtitled DVD’s, is the use of invision [ I think I got that right. Correct me in the comments, if I got that wrong] to bring up the sign interpreter in a separate window. I was gobsmacked to see this feature. I would have been content with the captions, as I love watching this guy.. but the addition of invision raised my estimation of him.

I hope he continues to make all his work as accessible as possible.

This is a double thumbs up for the man! Now go buy the DVD. HERE!

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November 21st, 2008 By Tony Posted in Creativity, Review, Visual Arts

REVIEW: Deaf Arts Festival

During October 2008, 17 to 31, New South Wales Association of The Deaf [NSWAD], staged a Deaf Arts Festival, during what has become National Week Of Deaf People [NWDP] – if I got this wrong, you can correct me.

The Deaf Arts Festival has been running for a few years now, and its focus is the visual arts. Admittedly, I went along with the expectation of something big and exciting. This is not to say I was disappointed, but, yeah, I was expecting more.

Still, two works blew me away. The first one [can't help but catch your eye as you walk into the exhibition] a mural of the Auslan Alphabet.

Alphabet Mural

Alphabet Mural - Patricia Wall

Too big for such a small space. It really needs to be out there where the public can see it. Such as this. To give you some idea of its size, here’s a picture taken at the opening:

Alphabet Mural [Scale]

Alphabet Mural - Opening Night

The other work was a short film by Phillip Debs [whom I know from years back] a photographer and filmmaker. The piece that was submitted is called “Torture”, and according to a friend, was filmed using a mobile phone.

Torture

Torture

I’m trying to get hold of the original footage, and maybe samples of his other work [which, if are as good as this, we are looking at a Deaf Tarantino!]. Where many Deaf are content to explore themes that stay on the nice side of the visual experience, “Torture” is sharp, taut, aggressive and in your face [perhaps that's why it appealed to me].  Which is a nice contrast to all this nicety that threatens to overwhelm.

I know there are many talented Deaf artists out there, but Phillip Debs, is the first [in a long time, that I've seen] that pitches his work, both stylistically and intellectually on par with Hearing artists.

I would have loved to present you with more photos from the exhibition, but alas, my lazy arse prevented me from giving into my motivation! But I managed to salvage two more decent images from the NSWAD newsletter Silent Messenger.

Cubism Guitar - Patricia Wall

Untitled - Nell Summerell

PLEASE NOTE:

All images by NSWAD, and were extracted from the newsletter Silent Messenger [which was in PDF form].

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