Commissioned and presented by ALL ARTS, this Emmy-nominated experimental documentary-dance film -- directed by Katherine Helen Fisher of Safety Third Productions -- takes audiences behind the scenes and into the studio as Kinetic Light creates their aerial dance production, Wired. Wired is an immersive work that explores the gendered, raced, and disability histories of barbed wire and traces the fine line between “us” and “them.” Dancers partner, spin, and soar as they reflect on art, dance, and disability as a creative force.
Kinetic Light’s ongoing research and development of aesthetic artistic accessibility can be flexibly experienced in One + One Make Three through two streams of ASL interpretation, multi-voiced enhanced audio description, and integrated open captions. We craft these access approaches as an integral part of our art, in collaboration with other disabled artists and community members. They are intentionally designed to be as challenging, provocative, and beautiful as the art itself.
Watch online in multiple accessible versions.
Runtime 28 minutes
One + One Make Three is available for screening requests beginning early 2023
Equitable & Aesthetic Accessibility
In keeping with our vision for equitable aesthetic access to art, we are delighted to share with you four versions of One + One Make Three. Each version presents different forms of access, so each encounter is slightly different. All of the versions are crafted with exquisite attention to artistry and beauty; we invite you to choose how you experience our work.
Sign Language Interpretation
This film has two separate streams of ASL interpretation. In the top righthand corner of the frame, interpreter Brandon Kazen-Maddox signs the voiceover. In the top lefthand, they sign the music and ambient sounds. The multi-interpretation concept was developed in consultation with Kazen-Maddox and Deaf engineer and cultural & access researcher Mel Chua.
Audio Description
Primary audio description for the film is scripted and performed by Cheryl Green. In the multiply-voiced style which has arisen from the company's research and practice based on our Audimance platform, the artists provide additional blended descriptions of movement, emotion, and internal process. The audio description is optionally available for you as a separate audio file.
Captioning and Transcription
Why both open and closed captions?
The film's voiceover lives in the open captions; the different artists' voices and music or sound captions are rendered in different colors.
The optional closed captions, available for every version of the film, functions as an interactive transcript and includes not just the voiceover but also the transcribed audio description. The transcript is also available for download for both ASL and non-ASL versions.
The screen is divided into a grid of 5 sections. Alice is repeated in three sections. Alice, a multi-racial Black woman with coffee-coloured skin and curly brown hair, is flying intently towards the camera. Alice arcs so her belly is to the floor and wheels rise behind; thick black cables connect to her from above. The energy feels electric, jolted. In the top corner sections Brandon, a mixed race Black artist with black-brown locs tied half up, signs multiply in front of a bright white backdrop. Alice Sheppard of Kinetic Light; still from One + One Make Three/Safety Third Productions.
The screen is divided into a grid of 5 sections. Repeated three times, light reflects brightly off the back of a pale white woman with short cropped hair and a teal top, tipping onto one wheelchair wheel. Laurel’s right arm extends directly out from her shoulder, while her left arm bends to connect with a nearly invisible black cable. She gazes toward her extended arm. The image is mirrored on the bottom grid as if two Laurels were reaching towards each other. Brandon, a mixed race Black artist with long braids half tied up, signs in the top corners and teal font between Laurel’s mirrored arms reads “Wired is an experiment in, and for, disabled dancers.” Laurel Lawson of Kinetic Light; still from One + One Make Three/Safety Third Productions.
Jerron, a dark-skinned Black man with a beard and twisted black hair, is wrapped in barbed wire that glints as it encircles his chest, palsied left arm, and neck before trailing out of frame. In deep focus, he looks at his right hand as it emerges through the wire. Suspended high above and far right, a blurry Alice is barely visible in the shadows behind Jerron. A multiracial Black woman with short curly hair, Alice arches toward Jerron in curiosity, forming a tight ball. The backdrop glows a deep orange rust color. Jerron Herman and Alice Sheppard of Kinetic Light; still from One + One Make Three/Safety Third Productions.
Legal
We are thrilled that you like our work, and that so many of you are inspired to explore movement. And:
We are trained performers using specially developed equipment and our choreography is executed in a rehearsed and controlled environment. Please do not attempt to duplicate, recreate or copy our choreography or moves at home or anywhere else: you could be seriously (maybe even fatally) injured or you could damage your or someone else's property.
The viewing of the following film is for informational, enlightenment and entertainment purposes only.
You are hereby notified and advised that choreography you will see in the following film is performed by experienced and well-conditioned and trained professionals using specially designed, developed constructed and tested equipment and other apparatus, as well as highly specialized techniques and know-how, and is performed in a rehearsed and controlled environment.
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DUPLICATE, RE-CREATE, PERFORM OR IMITATE IN ANY MANNER THE SAME OR SIMILAR CHOREOGRAPHY OR DANCE MOVES EITHER AT HOME OR IN ANY OTHER ENVIRONMENT.
Many of the dance moves performed in the film require physical conditioning and involve a risk of serious physical injury and possibly even death and, in certain circumstances, also may result in damage or other injury to personal or other property.
The producers, directors, performers and others involved in making the film, as well as PBS and its affiliated stations, will not be responsible for any such injury or damage.
Credits
Kinetic Light Artistic Director: Alice Sheppard Film Director: Katherine Helen Fisher Artists: Jerron Herman, Laurel Lawson, Alice Sheppard Choreographer: Alice Sheppard Choreographic Collaborators: Jerron Herman, Laurel Lawson ASL Interpreter, Deaf Culture Consultant; Subtitles: Brandon Kazen-Maddox Film Production Company: Safety Third Productions Producer: Shimmy Boyle Director of Photography: Devon Donis Archival Producer: Caroline Haydon ASL Director of Photography: Joe Foley ASL Gaffer: Quinton Carr-Goodwin Acrobatic Rigger: Catherine A. Nelson Creative Director: Alice Sheppard Director of Access Design: Laurel Lawson Audio Describer: Cheryl Green Augmented Audio Description: Kinetic Light Artists Deaf Culture Consultant: Mel Chua Subtitles: Body Language Productions Score Composer & Performer: Vanessa Gould Editor, Grid Concept Designer: John Walter Theatrical Lighting Design: Colm McNally Title Design: Emily Kwong STILL IMAGE CREDITS Photography of Melvin Edwards (2) Melvin Edwards, Dakar, Senegal, 2008 Melvin Edwards, 2019. Photo: Ross Collab Edwards, Melvin (b. 1937-)© ARS, NY. Pyramid Up and Down Pyramid. 1969, refabricated 2017. Barbed wire. Purchase, with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee. Inv.: 2018.14. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, U.S.A. Digital Image © Whitney Museum of American Art / Licensed by Scala / Art Resource, NY © 2021 Melvin Edwards / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Barbed Wire Images Jacob Haish Barbed Wire Patent Images dated 1875 and 1880 United States Patent Office, Washington DC Source: http://www.jacobhaishstory.com/2020/04/