FARMINGTON – An event that has drawn attention from across New England will take place on the Mt. Blue Campus this Friday with a focus on bridging members of the deaf and hearing communities.
The Mt. Blue American Sign Language Day Experience, or M.A.D. Experience for short, will showcase the work of ASL students at Mt. Blue, welcome a nationally recognized deaf performer to the stage and provide students with a focused workshop during the school day.
ASL is considered a World Language class at Mt. Blue, and has been given more attention this year with a full time teaching position, filled by Gail Carlson. Carlson said she has 70 students in her class, many of whom have a deaf person in their life.
“They just want to be able to communicate without relying on an interpreter,” Carlson said.
The students have been tasked with the job of designing, producing and managing the first half of the show- including not only performances crafted by the students themselves, but the lighting, sound, program creation and other details.
Students will perform songs, poems and tell stories, all in ASL, that they have been working on all year.
“Music is a big part of this school, so a lot of the students are doing something musical,” Carlson said.
Now in its fifth year, the M.A.D. Experience is attracting teachers, students and community members from as far as Massachusetts. The event’s premier performer, Boston-native Rosa Lee Timm, is described as a one-woman variety show that will weave together stories, poetry, video and music, all performed in ASL.
“This immersion experience will bring the two communities together by way of ASL,” Carlson said. “We have to start looking over and above that one disability and see what they can do differently. We need to see it as an ability.”
Carlson, who is profoundly deaf, said that many people feel scared to identify as deaf and that events like the M.A.D. Experience can help to alleviate that fear.
The M.A.D. Experience will begin at 6 p.m. in the Bjorn Auditorium on Mt. Blue Campus. Tickets are $5. For more information and to see a preview of student work, click here.
The M.A.D. Experience is made possible through fundraising, the Oak Grove Foundation and the American Sign Language Honor Society.
I’ve been to at least two of these, and they’re wonderful. You might even pick up a few signs, and you’ll have an introduction to a wonderful group of people you might find yourself joining someday (through accident, illness, aging, (grand)parenthood, or even romance).
I would love to enjoy this, but I do not sign (at all), although I have always wanted to learn. Will it be interpreted for the hearing, or will it be something that I can “interpret” some myself without signing?
It was fabulous! the students did an awesome job and Rosa Lee was incredible. Truely fun and educational too.
Thank you ASL teachers and students.
Carol