In ‘Curious Sensory Encounters,’ audiences sense connection

7 Stages Theatre’s new Curious Encounters installment asks audiences to unplug from senseless noise and plug in to their neighbors.

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In our current era of unbroken media coverage, when we are constantly bombarded with images and sounds of violence, it’s easy for us to become disconnected from our senses. That sensory overload becomes a tool of oppression, keeping us disconnected from the horror of what is happening. Our ability to respond to the needs of others is destroyed as we strive for self-preservation. This week, 7 Stages invites audiences to explore their senses and respond to the community in Curious Sensory Encounters, an experience inspired by poet Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic. The encounter will run May 17 through May 20 at 7 Stages Theatre. 

The Curious Encounters series started in 2014 as a fellowship with 7 Stages collaborator Michael Haverty. Since then, it has grown into a semiannual program aiming to promote new work and bring artists of different disciplines under one roof. Each year, a book is chosen as the centerpiece for the showcase. According to curator Heidi S Howard, the theme of the exhibition is usually chosen to dovetail with that season’s programming. 

“Year-round, we work with a chosen book to create artistic responses to the literature in schools with various partners in our community and artists. This is not to adapt the book to the stage but to connect the artistic process to the lives of all participants.” 

This year’s book choice, Deaf Republic, is a volume of narrative poetry published in 2019 and tells about the citizens of a war-torn country who are coping with unspeakable violence. After occupying police try to break up a public gathering and end up killing a young deaf boy, the entire country collectively goes deaf as a form of protest. Kaminsky himself is hard of hearing, and he wrote Deaf Republic as a way of turning deafness into a form of resistance. Once the civilians are unable to hear the barking orders of soldiers, they are free to pay attention to each other’s needs and form a more united community.

Inspired by Kaminsky’s work, Howard worked with co-curators Destiny Renee and Aileen Loy to explore how sensory experiences can affect collective protests. Artists were encouraged to create pieces that focus on one sense and either augment or strip it away to discover how it impacts engagement. However, these pieces are not direct adaptations of the book — rather, the artists used the text as a jumping off point.

For example, Light/Shadow Sensorial Playfuls — organized by Charne Furcron, Dana Lupton, Celeste Miller and Deisha Oliver — involves a series of interactive, guided movement meditations using light and shadow to explore the body’s experience of light and promote playful interaction with others. The Tuba Thieves, an interactive film by hard-of-hearing filmmaker Alison O’Daniel, is based on a series of tuba thefts in Los Angeles high schools. It features several d/Deaf people playing a modified version of a telephone as an examination of the nature of sound.

While some of the works invite audiences to connect with one another through shared sensory experiences, others highlight how divergent sensory experiences can impact our understanding of community and resistance. What they all share is a focus on the body.

Like other Curious Encounter events, Curious Sensory Encounters is an entirely self-guided experience, with all of the exhibits being run concurrently at different locations within the theater. Visitors are given a map upon entry and explore the exhibits in whatever order they choose. Only one of these exhibits takes place in the traditional theater space, while the rest are held in the lobby, hallways, dressing rooms, backstage and other spaces. 

Deaf Republic explores what happens when we become deaf to everything except our community, and Curious Sensory Encounters explores how reconnecting people to their senses restores capacity for connection. In a society that commodifies our bodies and overwhelms our senses in an effort to dull our reactions to tragedy, simply existing in a space with one another and honoring our bodies becomes an intrinsically transgressive act.

The body longs to be in community with other bodies, even when oppressive systems of power seek to keep us isolated. By bringing our focus back to our senses, Curious Sensory Encounters encourages us to be present with each other — and reclaim what war endeavors to steal.

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Luke Evans is an Atlanta-based writer, critic and dramaturg. He covers theater for ArtsATL and Broadway World Atlanta and has worked with theaters such as the Alliance, Actor’s Express, Out Front Theatre and Woodstock Arts. He’s a graduate of Oglethorpe University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree, and the University of Houston, where he earned his master’s.