JENNIFER LINDSAY
jennifer lindsay is a tkaronto/toronto based artist-researcher working in theatre, video, ceramics, and sound. spanning art and health sciences, her practice is informed by memoirs of the body, language disfluency, and crip time.
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HOW DO WE (SPEAK) LIKE A PALACE
THE NANCY AND ED JACKMAN PERFORMANCE CENTRE
jun 2027
currently in development, HOW DO WE (SPEAK) LIKE A PALACE is a sound, visual art, and dance-theatre performance project that aims to facilitate a multi-sensorial inquiry into the sounds, sights, and felt sense of aphasia and similar forms of disabled speech.
"the contradiction of stuttering is that i am both speaking and not speaking. mid-sentence I block on a word. sound stops coming from my mouth, but I haven't reached the end of my thought. the current of my speech has just gone underground." - jjjjjerome ellis
this is how artist
jjjjjerome ellis describes their experience with glottal block stuttering in their album and book, the clearing. linked to brain injury and neurological conditions that create communication differences, HOW DO WE (SPEAK) LIKE A PALACE is driven by the desire to sit with and affirm the underground places that language disfluency goes. language disfluency, also known as disabled communication, includes trouble with word finding, difficulty comprehending, hearing, and organizing sounds, as well as sensory differences caused by brain injury. stuttering, deafness, and non-verbal autism stemming from differences in brain physiology at birth are also considered disabled communication.
HOW DO WE (SPEAK) LIKE A PALACE invites audience goers to visit four worlds of language disfluency.
before being immersed, each world is announced by sounds of a bus, a passenger asking a question, and a pause. when immersed, each world is characterized by natural and unnatural sounds, and language-based field recordings, visual lighting cues of deep blues, pinks, and purples, and movement cues that are wayward, tender, and euphoric. each world appears and reappears.
world one is named encounter – a world that confronts a disfluent bodymind for the first time, as both an outsider and an insider. world two is named mess – a world that unmakes the bodymind by unlearning normative communication and coping strategies vested in cure. world three is named joy – a world that celebrates an ever-changing bodymind with euphoric embrace. while world four is named crip futurity – a world that reimagines a bodymind with tenderness and possibility. in disability scholarship, the mind and body are unified as one, termed the bodymind.
i am actively developing HOW DO WE (SPEAK) LIKE A PALACE and am seeking funding for choreography and set design. a series of deep listening sessions with the public are planned for early 2027, and performances are planned for June 2027.
writer, director, and producer: jennifer lindsay
electroacoustic composer: graeme dyck
visual artist, set designer, and animator: winnie truong
technologist: dan tapper
choreographer: to be announced
dance-artist: to be announced
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