The Void is the place where we do the gritty work of growing older. 

This multilingual performance uses the physical languages of dance and American Sign Language (ASL) interchangeably to guide the audience through one version of that aging process. Set in an analog, womb-like landscape, dancers work in cycles as they grapple with each other and all versions of themselves: the remembered, the hoped-for, and their imperfect present forms. Performers manipulate various tape machines, including a reel-to-reel eight-track, which record, rewind, replay, and transform their interactions. The cycles are punctuated by the audience, who change their seats at the performers’ signal throughout. Each move is a reminder to keep shifting our perspective to join the performers in holding up the Void. 

ARCOS investigates the blend of ASL and dance as complementary physical languages, inspired by Alice Sheppard’s challenge to consider accessibility as aesthetic. Dance is a highly subjective art form in which each audience member takes away their own interpretation. Similarly, ASL is a gestural language that is not a word-for-word translation of English, and a sign can take on many meanings depending on its context and the expression, energy, and emotion of the signer. In the performance, ASL sometimes provides direct interpretation of sonic elements for Deaf or hard-of-hearing viewers, and other times a poetic response or preface to what the dancers are engaged in: a layer of meaning legible in full only to those who sign, but which, much like dance, can be felt by all.