Blind Spot
13 January, 2018

Blind people Lab: Darkness, sound and imagination




DESCRIPTION

The “Blind people Lab: darkness, sound and imagination“ was created in the theatre school from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile during the 16, 17, 18 and 19 of January of 2017. This instance was organized and financed by Persona Theater Company and counted with the collaboration of FITAM and The Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile.

The exploration was based in three areas: sound, darkness and imagination. Ten blind people between the ages of 28 and 83 participated and ten members of Persona Theater Company. The objective was to open a free space for exploration, created specifically so that blind men and women could recognize the blind culture as a specific zone of creation. By this means, scenic exercises were made that deepen the sound aspects of theater expression. The point of this work was to grab the blind experience as a starting point for the development of an actor’s language approached from perceptive fields that are distinguished for not having the vision as a privileged sense, for its execution as well as for the viewing of the scenic material.

In this instance, contradictions and reflections about the traditional codes in which a scene is formed came up inevitably. Without a doubt, notions such as „ normality“ were invalidated by dealing with categories incapable of assuming the diverse manifestations that a human being expresses themselves and the constant transformation of the experience we understand as “what is real”.



Questions and Guidelines

  • What are the characteristics of a blind people’s culture?
  • Another way of feeling, is another way of thinking the world.
  • To validate what one does not see as an essential part of what is real.
  • Generate a perceptive bond with everyday experience, as an alternative to visuality.
  • Question the stability of the visible world, offering new ideas about its appearance.
  • Approaching in a critical way the perceptive western norm, for the notion of "normality“ takes away from the blind its political power.
  • Revitalize the political power that occurs on the sidelines of "normality“

  • The following people participated in this project:

    1. Ivonne Setz
    2. Mónica Sepúlveda
    3. José Roberto Peña
    4. Esteban Araya
    5. Luís René Gutiérrez
    6. Janette Claude
    7. Flora Mafme
    8. Lorenzo Morales
    9. Marisol Bocanegra
    10. Graciela
    1. Marguerita Lavossi
    2. Gonzalo Maruri
    3. Gabriela Torrejón
    4. Tania Novoa
    5. Valentina Parada
    6. María Fernanda Giacaman
    7. Mario Avillo
    8. Fernando Matur de la Parra
    9. Camilo Navarro
    10. Ignacia González