Martha Vineyard

D-Live! Theatre's successful funding project for Medway

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Martha Vineyard project is about 200 deaf people from Kent moved to America in 17th Century which resulted  a “deaf village” called “Martha’s Vineyard” where everyone spoke sign language is a very important cultural and historical event that is widely unknown.  Why was it this large group of deaf people moved across the Atlantic?  What made them go? This important local heritage needs to be explored and known about by deaf children, young people and adults across Kent for them to realise that there have been deaf people throughout history (as most mainstream history books don’t ever mention deaf people).  

 

This project would be the first of its kind to celebrate this important historical event.  We would celebrate deaf people in Kent in 17th century and find out all about them and then widely share this knowledge with deaf children and young people today to shine a light on this heritage and what the experience was like for deaf people back then.

 

The film and student will work with two different workshop faciliators through art and English and thier work will be premiered BUP! Festival in 2024 at Chatham Historic Dockyard where deaf children and their families in Medway will have direct experience through access of BSL language celebrating their work making unique festival. Lastly their will be published part of history book. 

 

 

Steven Vevers-Webb

Artistic Director of D-Live! Theatre Company