Christopher Sacre, director of SEE and CREATE, has collaborated with D-Live! artistic director Steven Vevers-Webb to create BUP! Festival: the UK’s first ever BSL inclusive and accessible festival targeted at deaf families.
The event will showcase curated activities and performances for deaf children and their families, hosted at the Sun Pier House in Medway. In the build-up to the festival, Christopher discusses their inspiration for the festival and the necessity of Deaf visibility for children and young adults.
The Indiependent: What inspired BUP! Festival to take place?
Christopher: I’ve been thinking for some time that there was a need for a festival that brings together deaf families and all families, including those who communicate in British Sign Language (BSL) and spoken language users. The term ‘BUP!’ is an English language rendering of the BSL sign for a coming together of people in a place. In this case, a coming together to collectively participate in a range of workshops, drop-in activities, art, drama, and storytelling created for and by young people, especially young deaf people, to showcase their fantastic creative writing skills and creativity.
What are you most excited about that is taking place at the festival?
I’m really excited to see how this immersive visual communication model putting BSL at the heart of the festival manifests over the weekend. I’m curious to see how this inversion of the usual way of doing things is received, and how the participants respond, including those who don’t usually communicate visually and will have a unique, enjoyable and intriguing experience.
It’s great that the festival is introducing children to positive deaf adult role models. Was there anybody who acted as a positive role model to you whilst you were a child?
When I was growing up unfortunately I never met a deaf role model that I could draw upon as they were few and far between. I was in my early twenties before I was able to meet role models, as we weren’t told about any at school or met any at public events. This is one of the key things that BUP! aims to change, by giving young people a chance to experience having role models that they can take inspiration from, and by having BUP! biannually we hope to see its positive influence on young people grow significantly over time.
What drew you to partner and collaborate with D-Live! Theatre Company in creating the festival?
Myself and Steve Vevers-Webb from D-Live! Theatre company have known each other for many years. We share the same passion and commitment to inspiring young people to participate in the creative arts sectors, in our respective cases in theatre and art. We have successfully collaborated on a number of projects in the past. Steve mentioned that D-Live! was planning a festival entitled ‘BigD Collection Stories’ and I mentioned that I wanted to see something similar set up for visual creative art. So, we put our heads together to come up with a festival plan incorporating a mixture of arts and BUP! was born.
Since the festival is counteracting the differences in language development and enjoyment of reading for deaf children with their peers, is there any advice you could give to parents/carers at the moment?
For children that don’t hear spoken language and who are lip-reading, I think it’s really important to develop an awareness of what a complex and difficult undertaking lip-reading can be. Many words that sound different look identical on the lips. For example ‘chip’ and ‘ship’. So, having additional visual materials is helpful, such as pictures to refer to. Lip-reading requires a lot of patience, persistence and repetition too. It’s advisable to ask a child what exactly they see, rather than using blanket terms like ‘do you understand’? A combination of signs, speech and pictures to refer to can really help a child to develop their understanding.
It’s amazing that accessible resources will continue to be available at Sun Pier House. What do you hope the weekend programme will accomplish and include?
I’m really proud that we are able to deliver a festival that has BSL at its heart while recognising that not all young people will use or understand BSL. That’s why it’s great that there is BSL but also speech and written translation so that all the young people will hopefully feel that they can participate on an equal footing.
Accessibility is key to the ethos of the festival, especially as the tickets are free. For any readers who want to support the positive work being done, are there any recommended organisations which people can become involved with?
We are immensely grateful for the support we’ve had from a range of people and organisations. You can see some of these on the official BUP! Festival promotional materials and programme. Please check out SEE and CREATE’s events listing to see what BSL accessible and inclusive events are coming up in Medway and the South East area. D-Live! has some exciting shows coming up so please keep an eye out for those. The MESS ROOM is also worth checking out for events which are accessible for deaf, blind and visually impaired people and for the wider community in Medway and North Kent.
Can you tell us about any of the future projects that are on the horizon following the festival?
We will expand the range of what’s on offer and reach out to a wider area, adding new venues and holding the festival bi-annually. We are also looking to expand the age range of the festival up to 25 years old, to encourage young adults to get involved too. Eventually, we envision that the festival will incorporate any creative activity, such as film-making, animation, dance and live performance so that participants will have the widest possible experience of creative modes of expression that they can take from the festival and continue developing at home and in the wider community.
Words by Alanya Smith
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