PERCEPTUAL ARCHAEOLOGY (or How To Travel Blind)
Crow's Theatre and Fire and Rescue Team present
Written by Alex Bulmer
Directed by Leah Cherniak
Jun 1, 2023 - Jun 25, 2023
Studio Theatre
DESCRIPTION OF HEADER IMAGE: With a background of clouds and a blue sky, Alex Bulmer stands mid-step in the clouds pulling a red and black rolling suitcase behind her. Alex is a white woman in her early 50s with short dirty-blonde hair. She wears an unbuttoned red canvas jacket over a white t-shirt, black jeans, and black boots. Below her feet in bold lettering reads Perceptual Archaeology [or How To Travel Blind]. Accessible for Blind and Sighted audiences. Below the text is hand-drawn images of landmarks from various international locations that have been meshed into a cohesive landscape. Images include cathedrals, a train station, a boat crossing a river and a large clock tower.
What is it like to travel blind?
Adapted for theatre from her original blind travel essays, Alex sets off on a dramatic journey that playfully twists and turns across differing geographies and unexpected emotional terrain.
Imagine a play created by blind and sighted artists. Imagine a play developed with a love of improvisation, sound, the absurd, and the uncertain.
PERCEPTUAL ARCHAEOLOGY (OR HOW TO TRAVEL BLIND) is designed and created for blind and sighted audiences.
The Fire and Rescue Team is an artist-led performance collective, co-founded and helmed by theatre artists Alex Bulmer and Leah Cherniak.
Alex has a background in artistic adaptation, writing and music, finds creative momentum in the improbable, and creates within the disruptive uncertainty of blindness.
Leah has a history of directing – making theatre where improvisation is an impetus in the rehearsal process which values rhythm, invention and uncertainty.
They share a rigour for analysis and language, an attraction to risk, and the playful subversion of audience expectations.
The emergence of Fire and Rescue as a collective evolved following a number of projects that explored the idea of de-centering vision from a creative process.