Making accessibility accessible: maximising the impact of the integrated immersive inclusiveness project

This follow on funding project builds on an existing collaboration between Red Earth Theatre, a small-scale touring company with an established track record and commitment to research in inclusive integrated communication for young audiences (with a focus on deaf audiences) and an interdisciplinary team of researchers across arts and computer sciences at the University of Nottingham.

Red Earth's established 'total communication' approach to making theatre aims to integrate modes of communication - including metaphor, symbol, costume, set, lighting, auditory, signed, oral, written, and music - immersively within the theatrical aesthetics of the performance. British Sign Language and/or Sign Supported English has been successfully embedded within the action through the skilled work of their actors, but the challenge of achieving integrated embedded captions within the stage action to achieve immersiveness rather than the attention splitting caused by the placement of captions whether at the side, above or via phone screens (as with Talking Birds' The Difference Engine) or smart glasses (National Theatre) is expensive and demanding for small- and medium-scale theatre companies.

Through a series of iterative workshops and events with key stakeholders from the deaf community and the seven theatre companies that make up the Arts Council funded Ramps on the Moon network, funded by the AHRC/EPSRC's 2018 Research and Partnership Development call - Next Generation of Immersive Experiences, our team has worked to explore the potential for the use of cheap or freely available immersive technologies - using virtual reality tracking and projection - to support further development of integrated inclusiveness for deaf audiences in small scale touring productions. Having successfully developed, trialled and shared prototype approaches in short extracts of performance, we now seek to embed our suggested solutions in the context of a full touring production. This will enable the integration of our immersive captions as a full element of the performance and production from the beginning of the design process, in contrast to the existing practice of captioning that is added at the end of the production process and situated above or to the side of the stage.

In autumn 2019, Red Earth will tour Soonchild, based on Russell Hoban's book and incorporating specially commissioned music from the folk ensemble Threaded. Set in the frozen North, Soonchild tells the story of the shaman Sixteen Face John as he undertakes an epic journey to capture the world's songs for his unborn child, who cannot be born until the songs have been found. This production, aimed at children aged 8+ and their families, will enable us to showcase the technologies in action, creatively embedding our previous research with the aim of:

- sharing the potential of this innovative technology with audiences. Red Earth planned tour of a minimum of 15 performances in the autumn of 2019 will reach an anticipated audience of up to 1000 young children and family members (the show will be revived in 2020 touring to a planned minimum of 20 medium sized-venues). Feedback from audience members will inform future marketing and information on the system to support venues seeking to engage with often hard to reach audiences in the D/deaf community, ensuring that our integrated immersive inclusive technology has maximum impact with theatre audiences.
- proving the stability and robustness of the system, which will be showcased to new communities of theatre venues and production companies via a hands-on technical workshop and supported via specially created video tutorials and how to guides. On completion of the Soonchild tour, the equipment used will be made available for loan to other companies who wish to trial the technologies, ensuring effective and supported pathways to impact for prospective new users of our integrated immersive incusive technology.

While this project continues to sustain the pathways to impact envisaged in the original 'Integrated Immersive Inclusiveness project, supporting Red Earth's capacity to deliver on the potential benefits of our prototype technology, our aim is to build new impact outcomes with a significant change in scale through activities centred on a full production of Soonchild which will creatively demonstrate the potential of our aesthetically embedded captioning technology to new audiences and user communities, as follows:

1. up to 1,000 audience members (children aged 8+ and their families) will experience integrated immersive captioning for the first time in the touring show that this project will enable, made feasible by our development of a stable, user friendly, low equipment cost, open source projection mapping system. Follow on funding takes this technology from the laboratory to the stage of venues around the country, where audiences on the spectrum of hearing loss from D/deaf to hard of hearing will benefit for the first time. Success will be measured by capture of audience feedback, and planned integration of the technology into subsequent Red Earth tours.

2. small scale theatre companies across the UK and beyond will benefit from access to that projection mapping system, supported by a set of best practice guidelines for delivering embedded captions, training materials for how to use the technology and how to embed it in a production process, and a focussed workshop/tutorial to disseminate the system, guidelines and knowledge. Both workshop and the availability of materials will be publicised by Ramps on the Moon and the Independent Theatre Council (ITC), and through publication channels such as Arts Professional and The Stage, ensuring maximum reach and impact. Availability of a physical, borrowable system that can be used by other production companies wishing to try out the system before committing to purchasing the necessary equipment makes the trialling of the technology by other small companies feasible and will ensure sustainability of the project beyond the funding period.

3. Red Earth's 'D/deaf Like Me' report, carried out with support from an AHRC Midlands3Cities DTP placement student in 2017, highlighted that 'the major stumbling block to participation of D/deaf people in theatre is communication access - at every stage of the process ... Information in an accessible form to those who need it, via multiple channels - the right language and the right medium' is vital. Through this project, venues across the UK will benefit from work led by CoI Mevel and the Inclusive Engagement Fellow that will develop best practice guidance and examples for marketing materials to ensure that audiences understand what the production will offer. Support for venues to develop sustainable relationships with audiences from the deaf community, many of whom currently fall within the hard to engage category, will be of direct benefit to the individual venues visited on tour, and for other venues visited by Red Earth and other inclusive theatre companies on subsequent tours beyond the funding period.