“My Hands are Screaming” is an important voice of the d/Deaf community, a kind of performance/manifesto performed by Deaf people in Polish Sign Language with live translation into phonic Polish.

It is based on 15 interviews/conversations with people who feel a sense of belonging to the d/Deaf environment and culture; these included d/Deaf people, hard of hearing people, people with hearing aids, people with cochlear implants, form d/Deaf families, from hearing families and CODA (Child/Children of Deaf Adults). The performance addresses issues such as topics close to the life and everyday functioning of d/Deaf people in their own environment without sound and the problems arising from the compulsion to find oneself in a world with sound; the richness of Polish Sign Language and its performative possibilities; different forms of creativity of d/Deaf people.

In its initial, premiere phase, the project was realised as part of Natalia Świniarska’s diploma project at the degree programme in theatre pedagogy run by the Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute in Warsaw in cooperation with the Institute of Polish Culture at the University of Warsaw. The supervisor of the diploma project, which was the seed of the performance, was Justyna Sobczyk from Theatre 21.