Imagined Touch
Synopsis
When two deafblind women, Heather Lawson and Michelle Stevens, approached director Jodee Mundy to make a show, they pulled off the impossible. They turned their small community performance into IMAGINED TOUCH, a sell-out success at Sydney Festival (2017) and won a Green Room Award.
The work answers the question: What happens when one loses the ability to connect? Imagine if you were deaf and blind. What would you do? What would your life be like? How would you communicate? Survive? Walk down the street? Catch a train? Would you ever work again? In IMAGINED TOUCH Heather, Michelle and Jodee show you can indeed do all of those things and more. The documentary explores the collaboration of three women: deafblind performers Heather Lawson, Michelle Stevens and director Jodee Mundy, who is a CODA. They wrestle with the fundamental question - how do they perform if they can’t see or hear on stage and lead the audience to a true understanding of what is it like to be deprived of sight and hearing?
Using archival footage that depicts the making of the stage play, the footage was filmed over a six-year period: Heather and Michelle growing in confidence, developing their performance skills, and agility in rehearsals; their performances, audiences’ responses, interviews with the performers, the creatives they work with who do not communicate in sign, the tears, the falls, to the wonderful breakthroughs, right up until the incredible win of the Green Room Award. IMAGINED TOUCH is an international, highly acclaimed and award- winning performance about what it is like to be deaf- blind.
MICHELLE STEVENS
“I remember when I was a child I wanted to touch the fruit in the supermarket. But my mother was in a hurry and pulled me away, telling me ‘You’ll just have to imagine it’.”
An entirely Deaf and disability-led team, on and behind the camera, this film offers a unique insight into the world of members from the Australian Sign Language community. This film was shot in the City of Melbourne at Arts House and Sydney Festival, Carriageworks.
When touch becomes
your vision of the world
Written and Directed by: Sofya Gollan
Directed and Produced by: Jodee Mundy OAM
Director of Photography: Tom Chapman
Editor: Danielle Boesenberg
Composers: Madeleine Flynn & Tim Humphrey
Sound Designers: Andrew McGrath & Erin McKimm
featuring
Heather Lawson
Michelle Stevens
Logan the Assisted Seeing Eye Dog
Performers & Tactile Interpreters: Mark Sandon & Marc Ethan
Awards
Best Screenplay - AWGIE Awards for Best Documentary (Community)
Nominated – Best Director, Short Documentary – Australian Directors Guild
Festivals
- Lincoln Center of Performing Arts, Reelabilities New York, USA 2023
- Melbourne Women in Film Festival, Melbourne, 2023
- ACMI, The Other Film Festival Melbourne, 2022
Supported by
The Besen Family Foundation, Australia Council for the Arts, Able Australia, City of Melbourne, Soundfirm, Soundwaves.
The production acknowledges the Wurundjeri Woiwurrung people of the Kulin Nation and the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation as the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which IMAGINED TOUCH was filmed.
Synopsis
When two deafblind women, Heather Lawson and Michelle Stevens, approached director Jodee Mundy to make a show, they pulled off the impossible. They turned their small community performance into IMAGINED TOUCH, a sell-out success at Sydney Festival (2017) and won a Green Room Award.
The work answers the question: What happens when one loses the ability to connect? Imagine if you were deaf and blind. What would you do? What would your life be like? How would you communicate? Survive? Walk down the street? Catch a train? Would you ever work again? In IMAGINED TOUCH Heather, Michelle and Jodee show you can indeed do all of those things and more. The documentary explores the collaboration of three women: deafblind performers Heather Lawson, Michelle Stevens and director Jodee Mundy, who is a CODA. They wrestle with the fundamental question - how do they perform if they can’t see or hear on stage and lead the audience to a true understanding of what is it like to be deprived of sight and hearing?
Using archival footage that depicts the making of the stage play, the footage was filmed over a six-year period: Heather and Michelle growing in confidence, developing their performance skills, and agility in rehearsals; their performances, audiences’ responses, interviews with the performers, the creatives they work with who do not communicate in sign, the tears, the falls, to the wonderful breakthroughs, right up until the incredible win of the Green Room Award. IMAGINED TOUCH is an international, highly acclaimed and award- winning performance about what it is like to be deaf- blind.
MICHELLE STEVENS
“I remember when I was a child I wanted to touch the fruit in the supermarket. But my mother was in a hurry and pulled me away, telling me ‘You’ll just have to imagine it’.”
An entirely Deaf and disability-led team, on and behind the camera, this film offers a unique insight into the world of members from the Australian Sign Language community. This film was shot in the City of Melbourne at Arts House and Sydney Festival, Carriageworks.
