Research Catalog

Title

Hearing difference : the third ear in experimental, deaf, and multicultural theater / Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren.

Author

Kochhar-Lindgren, Kanta

Publication

Washington, D.C. : Gallaudet University Press, 2006.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 206 p. : ill.; 24 cm.

Summary

This engrossing study investigates the connections between hearing and deafness in experimental, Deaf, and multicultural theater. Author Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren focuses on how to articulate a Deaf aesthetic and how to grasp the meaning of moments of "deafness" in theater works that do not simply reinscribe a hearing bias back into one's analysis. She employs a model using a device for cross-sensory listening across domains of sound, silence, and the moving body in performance that she calls the "third ear." Kochhar-Lindgren then charts a genealogy of the theater of the third ear from the mid-1800s to the 1960s in examples ranging from Denis Diderot, the Symbolists, the Dadaists, Antonin Artaud, and others. She also analyzes the work of playwright Robert Wilson, the National Theatre of the Deaf, and Asian American director Ping Chong. She shows how the model of the third ear can address not only deaf performance but also multicultural performance, by analyzing the Seattle dance troupe Ragamala's 2001 production of Transposed Heads, which melded classical South Indian use of mudras, or hand gestures, and ASL signing. The shift in attention limned in Hearing Difference leads to a different understanding of the body, intersubjectivity, communication, and cross-cultural relations, confirming it as a critically important contribution to contemporary Deaf studies.

Uniform Title

Project Muse UPCC books

Subject

• Experimental theater > History
• Deaf, Theater for the > History

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 189-200) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

The third ear -- History of the theater of the third ear -- Performing deafness : Robert Wilson -- Between the two worlds of hearing and deafness : the National Theater of the Deaf and others -- Performing at the edge of hearing : Ping Chong, Augusto Boal, and Tara Arts -- Mixing deafness and ethnicity : gesture and silence -- Conclusion : dancing voices.

ISBN

1563682907 (alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2005058935

OCLC

• 62766162
• SCSB-12476678

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library