When Access Becomes Part of the Performance

Reflecting on Adam Price and Jacqui Beckford’s session about embodiment, identity and intention in performance interpreting

An interpreter stands at the side of a stage while a performance unfolds several metres away. The actors move, react to one another and use the whole space. The lighting changes, music builds and the audience responds together.

The interpreter produces an accurate translation, but remains facing forwards in a fixed position. The Deaf audience must continually choose between watching the interpreter and looking towards the action.

Language access is present, but is the audience experiencing the performance?

This question sat at the centre of Adam Price and Jacqui Beckford’s session at The Together Conference 2026, Embodying the Work: Intersectionality, Lived Experience and Intention in Performance Interpreting.

Performance interpreting is sometimes viewed mainly as a creative form of interpreting. Adam and Jacqui showed that it is also a highly considered area of professional practice involving language, identity, cultural knowledge, movement, technical preparation, emotional responsibility and ethical decisions about whether the interpreter should be there at all.

They asked participants to look beyond whether the words had been translated and consider whether access had become part of the artistic experience or remained an addition placed beside it.

Why are you drawn to performance interpreting?

Adam and Jacqui began by asking participants why they were drawn to performance interpreting.

The question may appear simple, but the answer matters. Performance work can be visible, exciting and connected to well-known artists, venues or events. It can also require extensive preparation, specialist knowledge and a willingness to place the interpreter’s whole body within public view.

A person may be drawn to the work because they enjoy theatre, music, dance or storytelling. They may have relevant experience from another career, or recognise that their language and cultural knowledge could support access for a particular Deaf audience.

There may also be less useful motivations. Visibility, prestige or the wish to perform can sometimes begin to take priority over the purpose of the booking.

Adam and Jacqui did not suggest that interpreters should remove themselves emotionally or physically from performance. Their session argued almost the opposite. The interpreter needs to be fully engaged with the work.

However, that engagement needs a clear purpose. The interpreter’s presence should support the Deaf audience’s relationship with the performance, not turn the interpretation into a separate one-person show.

Asking “Why am I accepting this work?” is therefore part of professional preparation.

We bring our histories onto the stage

Both presenters introduced themselves by describing more than their interpreting qualifications.

Adam explained that he is a white cisgender man, a CODA and part of the LGBTQ+ community. He worked professionally as an actor for more than 14 years before qualifying as a BSL interpreter. His experience of growing up in a Deaf family, working in musical theatre and thinking about identity and belonging all influence how he approaches performance.

Jacqui described herself as a Black cisgender woman, CODA, mother, grandmother, activist and ally to the queer community. She grew up in South London within Jamaican, Caribbean, British and Deaf cultures. Her earlier training included contemporary dance, theatre workshops and touring with Graeae Theatre Company, as well as experience of the wider theatre production process.

These details were not offered as background decoration. They demonstrated intersectionality, the way different parts of identity and experience meet and shape how someone moves through the world and approaches their work.

An interpreter does not arrive on stage as a neutral body containing language. Their movement, appearance, cultural knowledge, experiences and relationship with the material affect the choices available to them.

This does not mean interpreters can only work with characters or stories that exactly match their own identity. It does mean that lived experience should be recognised rather than treated as irrelevant.

There may be cultural references one interpreter immediately recognises and another needs to research. Someone may connect personally with a character’s experience, while another professional needs advice from a Deaf consultant or someone from the community represented.

The responsible question is not, “Do I have the same identity as this character?” It is, “What do I understand, what do I not understand, and whose knowledge is needed to do this work properly?”

Access or add-on?

Adam asked participants to consider whether their approach to performance interpreting was truly providing access or had, at times, become an add-on.

Interpreters regularly challenge theatres and event organisers that think about access only after the production has already been created. A booking may arrive shortly before the performance, with little rehearsal time, limited sightline planning and no opportunity to work with the director or cast.

Adam asked whether interpreters might sometimes repeat that same pattern. They may accept the booking, learn the words and arrive ready to interpret, without developing enough knowledge of the production itself.

Performance interpreting requires an understanding of the environment. Jacqui listed technical theatre terms and abbreviations that anyone beginning this work should recognise, including stage management roles, lighting, pyrotechnics, stage positions, wings, rigging and other production language.

This knowledge affects both safety and collaboration. An interpreter who understands the language of the theatre can communicate more clearly with stage managers and technical teams. They can follow instructions, recognise cues and take part in discussions about lighting, positioning and movement.

Knowing BSL and enjoying performance are not, by themselves, preparation for working on a stage.

The same principle applies across interpreting and translation. Every setting has its own language, expectations and professional systems. Preparation includes understanding those systems, not only researching vocabulary.

Moving beyond “signing the words”

Adam explained that performance is made through much more than spoken or sung language. It includes body, rhythm, atmosphere, silence, character and intention.

If an interpreter focuses only on the words, the Deaf audience may receive the basic information while losing much of the experience surrounding it.

Adam used the idea of total embodiment to discuss several connected layers of performance interpreting:

• language

• character and meaning

• musicality and rhythm

• space and presence

• emotional truth

These layers do not replace accurate translation. Language remains the foundation. However, a translation that appears accurate on paper may not function properly within the production.

The sign choice may take too long for the pace of a song. Its movement may conflict with the physicality of a character. Its register may feel wrong for the person speaking, or its rhythm may work against the music.

Performance preparation therefore involves returning to the translation, testing it within the piece and making further decisions.

There is rarely only one possible BSL translation. The interpreter may adjust perspective, space, pace, rhythm or structure while continuing to protect the meaning and intention of the original.

What does the language need to do?

Adam illustrated this through his preparation for Sienna Spiro’s song The Visitor.

The song presents a young woman who wants love and commitment but feels temporary and disposable within another person’s life. The word “visitor” repeats and is also the title of the song.

A literal sign for visitor protects the artist’s deliberate choice, but may not fully communicate the deeper feeling of being someone who is never allowed to belong.

Adam did not simply replace the word with a different interpretation. The music provided extended vocal sections and additional time. He could retain the important reference to “visitor” while using rhythm and embodiment around it to show the emotional meaning beneath the word.

This led to a useful preparation question:

What is the language required to do within this performance?

An interpreter still needs to understand what the words mean, but must also consider their function. Is a repeated phrase building tension? Is it revealing something about a character? Is the artist using an apparently simple word to carry a larger metaphor?

The language does not sit separately from the performance. It is one part of the storytelling.

Reading what is not written in the script

Jacqui encouraged performance interpreters to think like dramaturgs.

A dramaturg examines how a production creates meaning. This may include the structure of the story, the historical and cultural setting, relationships between characters and information that is implied rather than stated directly.

An interpreter working only from a script may understand the dialogue while missing what the actors, setting and wider cultural context communicate.

Jacqui shared an example from The Kink in My Hair. An elderly Black woman watches a young, muscular gardener working nearby and imagines what her younger self might have done. Her age and physical movement contrast with the strength and yearning present in her voice.

The written words alone do not contain the full character. The interpreter needs to consider her physicality, desire, frustration, age and the cultural setting of a Black hair salon, where women’s stories and relationships are shared.

The challenge is to represent those different layers without turning the character into a stereotype or copying the actor’s body without understanding the reason behind it.

Jacqui stressed the value of rehearsal access and Deaf BSL consultants. Their knowledge can help identify which parts of the plot, character and cultural context need particular attention for a Deaf audience.

A consultant should not be brought in at the end simply to approve a finished translation. Their contribution should have time, recognition and appropriate payment built into the production.

Rhythm is part of access

Musicality is not limited to interpreting songs.

Adam noted that a Shakespearean monologue has rhythm. Stand-up comedy, drag, spoken-word performance and silence all have their own pulse.

A performer may rush through a section to create urgency, hold a pause before an important line or build tension before the music changes. These decisions affect how the audience experiences the piece.

An interpreter who concentrates only on lexical meaning may unintentionally flatten that movement. The signs may communicate the words while missing the anticipation, tension and release surrounding them.

Adam described listening to music without looking at the lyrics. He notices where the energy builds, softens, breathes or explodes before returning to the language.

This allows the rhythm to be experienced physically before translation decisions are made.

For Deaf audiences, rhythm is not something separate from access. It contributes to the emotional movement of the performance and needs to be made visible through pace, weight, repetition, stillness and changes in signing space.

This does not mean the interpreter must reproduce every beat or movement. Doing too much can distract from the stage. The aim is to understand what the rhythm is doing and decide how the interpretation can carry that function.

Finding a reason to be on stage

Positioning affects how the Deaf audience moves its attention between the interpreter and the performance.

Jacqui explained that an interpreter at the side of a stage is still part of the visual scene, whether the director has planned for them or not. Their clothing, lighting, movement and position all become part of what the audience sees.

If the interpreter remains face forward while a fight, embrace or significant piece of movement takes place elsewhere, the visual relationship can feel disconnected.

Jacqui described looking for a legitimate reason for her presence within the world of the production. Could she be understood as a neighbour, a ghost or another presence within the scene? Could actors look towards her naturally? Could her reactions help direct the Deaf audience back towards important non-verbal action?

This is not an invitation for the interpreter to invent a new character without agreement. It is a way of thinking critically about their position rather than behaving as though they are visually absent.

The interpreter should support the audience’s relationship with the actors and action. Sometimes that may require visible embodiment. At other moments, less is more and the interpreter needs to become still so that attention can move elsewhere.

Integrated access, where the interpreter or translator is included within the creative planning of a production, may allow stronger solutions. Where this is not available, interpreters still need to discuss sightlines, lighting, positioning and their relationship with the action as early as possible.

Emotional truth is not exaggeration

A performance interpretation can contain accurate language, appropriate rhythm and good positioning but still feel emotionally disconnected.

Adam described emotional truth as the layer that brings the other elements together. This does not mean copying the performer’s facial expression or attempting to display the largest possible emotion.

The interpreter needs to understand what is happening beneath the words.

A line about thoughts going around someone’s head could express excitement and romantic anticipation. In another context, the same words could communicate serious mental distress.

The lexical content may be similar, but the emotional reality is different.

Adam encouraged interpreters to ask what the moment needs from them emotionally and what they are responding to. The aim is not to reproduce another person’s experience or draw themselves into trauma. It is to understand enough of the character’s emotional journey to give the Deaf audience access to it.

When the interpreter responds rather than simply demonstrates emotion, the work is more likely to feel connected to the performance rather than placed on top of it.

Emotional truth also requires restraint. The audience does not need the interpreter to show everything they imagine the character may be feeling. They need access to the journey created by the production.

Appropriate casting and knowing when to say no

Performance interpreters need to consider whether they are the right person for a particular piece.

Jacqui encouraged participants to look at the full script where possible, speak with the director, consider the cultural context and find out whether a Deaf BSL consultant is involved.

Sometimes the responsible decision is to decline.

An interpreter may not have the cultural knowledge needed for the work. Preparation time may be completely inadequate. The organisation may be unwilling to involve a consultant or provide suitable working conditions.

The content may also have a personal or cumulative emotional effect that the interpreter does not wish to carry.

Saying no is not evidence of failure. It can show that the interpreter understands the scale and responsibility of the task.

Casting discussions should also begin before the interpreter’s own suitability is considered. The organisation should be asked whether it has considered Deaf actors, performers or translators.

During the conference discussion, Adam and Jacqui were clear that hearing interpreters should be prepared to step aside where a role or opportunity could appropriately be held by a Deaf professional. Interpreters can also challenge theatre companies at the funding and planning stage, when there is still time to include Deaf performers and the support they require.

Access should not become a reason to continue excluding Deaf people from the creative work itself.

Representation can carry a cost

Jacqui also discussed the personal cost of repeatedly being booked because of identity.

Across several decades, she has interpreted many performances connected to Black history and experience. This work has provided important access for Deaf audiences, particularly those from Black communities, and has required cultural knowledge that may not be widely held within the profession.

However, much of the material has focused on racism, enslavement, war, abuse and trauma. Jacqui noted that she had repeatedly been booked for work rooted in Black trauma, but not for productions unrelated to that experience.

This is a form of typecasting.

Representation can create opportunities, but it can also produce cultural taxation. A professional is repeatedly called upon because they hold particular cultural knowledge, then expected to carry the emotional and educational workload that comes with it.

Jacqui connected this with the concept of weathering, the cumulative physical impact of systemic oppression, including racism and classism. She explained that she has become practised at declining trauma-based work and highlighted the importance of peer support, including the Interpreters of Colour Network.

It is not enough for organisations to say they want representative interpreters. They need to consider what kinds of work those professionals are repeatedly asked to undertake, whether support is available and whether they are also offered the full range of creative opportunities.

A Black interpreter should not be treated as the automatic choice for every story connected to Black experience, nor should their knowledge be taken for granted. Identity does not make anyone an unlimited cultural resource.

Developing embodiment away from the stage

Adam and Jacqui ended with practical ways to develop greater awareness of embodiment.

One exercise involves interpreting a single sentence several times with different intentions. For example:

“I didn’t know you were coming.”

The sentence could be expressed with excitement, anger, fear, disappointment or sarcasm. The words remain the same, but pace, facial expression, signing space, rhythm and physical tension change.

Another exercise is to work with music that has no lyrics. Without a ready-made verbal message, the interpreter has to notice atmosphere, changes in tempo, silence and emotional movement.

Adam also encouraged people to consider dance, acting or movement workshops. The aim is not to become an actor or dancer before interpreting a performance. It is to become more aware of weight, breath, stillness, physical presence, listening and response.

These skills can be developed through observation too. Watch how an actor holds silence, how tension appears in the body or how the pace of a comedian’s delivery affects the audience.

Performance interpreting does not exist separately from the rest of professional practice. Experience across other domains can develop knowledge of people, language, emotion and interaction that later contributes to performance work. Adam particularly encouraged newer interpreters to remain connected with Deaf communities and gain wider professional experience rather than moving into performance before they have developed a strong interpreting foundation.

Beyond the theatre

Although this session focused on performance, embodiment is relevant across interpreting and translation.

An interpreter in healthcare may need to show the physical effect of an injury. Someone working in education may use characterisation to distinguish voices within a story. A conference interpreter may need to represent the rhythm and intention of a speaker rather than producing every sentence in the same form.

Sign language translators also make decisions about pace, physicality, emotional tone, positioning and audience. A recorded translation may appear on its own rather than alongside a live performer, but the translator still needs to consider how the body carries meaning.

The difference is that performance makes these decisions particularly visible. The audience can see immediately when the interpreter’s rhythm, emotional tone or physical presence does not connect with the production.

The lesson for wider practice is not that every interpretation should become theatrical. It is that our bodies are already communicating, whether we have considered that communication or not.

What are we passing on?

The 2026 conference theme was Pick It Up, Pass It On.

Performance interpreters pick up knowledge from Deaf communities, actors, directors, dancers, musicians, consultants, co-workers and the audiences watching them.

They also pass on ideas about what access should look like.

We can pass on a model in which the interpreter receives a script shortly before the event, stands at the side and does their best with limited support.

Alternatively, we can pass on the expectation that access should be considered during programming, casting, funding, rehearsal, set design, lighting and audience planning.

We can teach developing interpreters that performance work is not a shortcut to visibility. It requires strong language, broad interpreting experience, cultural humility, technical knowledge and an ability to consider whether another professional should take the role.

We can also pass on the understanding that identity is relevant, representation carries responsibility and nobody should be expected to repeatedly interpret trauma simply because they are one of the few people from a particular background working in the field.

New insights need creative and ethical discussion

The theme for The Together Conference 2027 is New Insights, Shared Purpose.

Performance interpreting and sign language translation continue to change as more theatres, festivals and artists consider Deaf audiences and Deaf participation.

There is much more for the profession to discuss.

Perhaps you are developing an integrated access model, researching embodiment or creating training around theatre terminology and production processes. You may be a Deaf performer, translator, consultant or director with experience of how access decisions are made.

You might have examined cultural casting, interpreter wellbeing, music translation, comedy, dance or the use of Deaf creative professionals within mainstream productions.

These experiences could contribute to The Together Conference 2027.

The Call for Papers opens on Monday 5 October 2026. You do not need to decide whether your proposal belongs in the live programme or the extended conference. Submit your idea and the review panel will consider where accepted contributions fit best.

Poster submissions will also be welcomed for developing projects, research, creative practice, early findings and professional resources.

Access becomes stronger when it is understood as part of the creative work rather than something placed beside it.

The shared purpose is not simply to have signing visible on a stage. It is to make sure Deaf audiences and Deaf professionals are part of the experience, the planning and the decisions that shape it.

Using this article for unstructured CPD

You may wish to reflect on one or more of the following questions:

1. Why are you interested in performance interpreting or translation?

2. Which parts of your identity and lived experience influence how you approach the work?

3. When does performance access feel integrated, and when does it feel like an add-on?

4. What technical theatre knowledge would you need before accepting performance work?

5. How do language, character, rhythm, space and emotional truth interact within a performance?

6. Have you ever created an accurate translation that did not work once placed within the pace or physicality of a performance?

7. How could you use rhythm and stillness to communicate more than lexical meaning?

8. What is the difference between responding to a character’s emotion and exaggerating it?

9. How might the interpreter’s position affect where the Deaf audience looks?

10. What role should Deaf BSL consultants, translators and performers have within the production process?

11. When should a hearing interpreter be prepared to step aside for a Deaf professional?

12. Could identity-based casting expose some interpreters to typecasting, cultural taxation or repeated traumatic content?

13. What support should be available after emotionally demanding performance work?

14. Which acting, dance, movement or observation exercises could support your own development?

15. Is there a creative project, research question or professional experience that could become a 2027 conference proposal or poster?

A short professional reflection on these questions could be recorded as part of your unstructured CPD.