by Sara Arenson
The Winnipeg Folk Festival is becoming more accessible to patrons who are blind or have low vision. This year, live audio description will be available at all mainstage performances, courtesy of Vocal Image Ensemble Winnipeg (VIEW). In June, VIEW also described the shows at the Pride Winnipeg mainstage. I had a chance to be a part of that team.
Describing concerts is a different kind of challenge from describing theatre. In theatre, VIEW records the dress rehearsal and a describer prepares a script, meticulously honing and fitting in their descriptions between the lines of dialogue. Such preparation is not possible for live music. This means the describer is basically “winging it”, improvising. Also, there is often less description than in theatre.
For Tyler Sneesby, VIEW services coordinator and someone who has low vision, live music description is about capturing the “vibe” of what’s happening on stage. “If the band is mostly standing static behind their instruments and microphone stands, then I don’t think a lot of description is necessary. But if the band is having fun and interacting with one another and has, say for example, some dance moves, I think that should be conveyed to the blind/low vision audience. If I hear the crowd reacting to something, I want to know what just happened.”
Coming from a music background himself as a performer and former venue owner, Tyler has made this expansion into concerts a goal since he became the VIEW coordinator last year. He gives Pride Winnipeg a shoutout for always trying to find ways to become more accessible. As for the Folk Festival, he pitched them the idea after noticing blind/low vision patrons sitting in the accessible section last year when he was the mainstage accessibility coordinator. “We tested it at one of their off-season shows at the Park Theatre in December and it went really well.”
I worked at the Pride mainstage on a Sunday afternoon/evening. Despite sweltering weather, the colourful crowd was unstoppable, dancing joyfully. A colleague and I sat in the substance-free zone, near the fence that enclosed the patio. We had a briefcase containing our equipment: a mask-like microphone meant to keep theatre audiences from hearing the describer, a transmitter unit, receiver units, and single earpieces. Unfortunately, we did not have anyone using the service that day, but we took turns practicing with the equipment, one of us on the microphone and both of us listening through the receivers. We focused on a general description of the stage layout, lighting, the performers’ outfits and hair, and any significant movements.
I discovered that from a distance it is not always easy to pin down exact outfits or describe them in detail when you are trying not to cut off speech at the beginning of an act. It’s also a challenge to find the words to describe movement on the fly, especially dance moves, i.e. drag shows. Sometimes all we could say was “She sinks to the ground” or “She stretches her arms overhead”. It can be hard to find an adjective for the exact type of energy in a performance. And sometimes there’s a temptation to put in more description just for the sake of having description, which makes you concerned that you are overdoing it. It was an engrossing and mind-stretching experience that kept me on my toes.
Please check out the new audio description service coming to the Winnipeg Folk Festival. VIEW will also be providing audio description at Jesus Christ Superstar (Sunday, July 5) and Legally Blonde (Sunday, August 23) at Rainbow Stage this summer.
How to find VIEW at the Winnipeg Folk Festival mainstage:
VIEW will be located in the accessible seating area, on the audience left side, adjacent to the entrance to the backstage. We ask service users to stay in the accessible seating area so that we can keep track of our receivers and ensure that the signal reaches far enough.
For more information about VIEW, please see: