Deaf performing artist Peter Cook to perform at Maryville College on Feb. 1 as part of year-long celebration
Dec. 19, 2024
Peter Cook, an internationally renowned Deaf performing artist whose works incorporate American Sign Language (ASL), pantomime, storytelling, acting and movement, will perform at Maryville College on Feb. 1.
His performance, part of the College’s 50-year anniversary of the ASL-English Interpreting major, will be held at 7 p.m. in the Harold and Jean Lambert Recital Hall of the Clayton Center for the Arts. Thanks to sponsorship from Sorenson Communications, the event is free and open to the public.
“The Deaf community has a strong and vibrant culture that includes storytelling,” explained Will White, Maryville College’s associate professor of ASL-English Interpreting. “Peter Cook is a prominent member of the Deaf community and is highly respected for his ability to encompass the Deaf perspective and Deaf experience so beautifully in his ASL stories. Deaf and Hearing audiences will be thoroughly entertained.”
Interpreting will be provided.
Cook holds a master’s degree in storytelling from East Tennessee State University and is a member of the ETSU Department of Communication and Performance’s Storytelling Hall of Fame.
From 2006 until July 2024, Cook served as associate professor and chair of the ASL department at Columbia College Chicago, where he received the 1997 Excellence in Teaching Award and was a finalist for the award again in 2018. In September, he was named senior lecturer in the linguistic program at Princeton University as part of the university’s expansion of its ASL program. In making the announcement of his new appointment, Princeton administrators described Cook as “one of the most celebrated bards in the history of sign language literature.”
For nearly 40 years, Cook has traveled extensively around the country and abroad with Flying Words Project to promote ASL Literature with Kenny Lerner. He has appeared in Live from Off Center’s “Words on Mouth” (PBS) and “United States of Poetry” (PBS), produced by Emmy winner Bob Holman. Cook also has been involved in numerous film projects, including the ITV’s Signed Stories.
He was featured at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee; the Tales of Graz in Graz, Austria; Deaf Way II; and the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Cook has worked with Deaf storytellers and poets in Europe, Brazil, Israel and Japan. He was invited to the White House to join the National Book Festival in 2003.
White said Hearing attendees will benefit greatly from Cook’s Feb. 1 performance.
“We gain a better understanding of our own place in the world when we understand how others live their lives,” he said. “One of the best ways to understand other cultures and gain an appreciation for their values is to explore their traditions and customs.
“Storytelling is present in every culture in the world. In Peter Cook’s stories, we hope that attendees will gain an increased understanding of the unique way in which the Deaf community experiences the world every day and the values that govern their choices despite the challenges of not being in the majority.”
Deaf Panel, Social Time held prior
At 2 p.m., the College’s ASL-English Interpreting program will host a Deaf Panel for ASL interpreters in the Lambert Recital Hall. Attendance is free of charge. Panelists will include Briella Diaz, Jesse Fuller, Trent Harper, Dr. Dan Hoffman, Rusty Sloan and Dr. Dave Smith. Stephanie Proctor, program coordinator and assistant professor of the College’s ASL & Deaf Studies major, will facilitate the panel discussion.
“The Deaf Panel event is being held to speak to the one and only purpose of sign language interpreters: To provide effective and culturally appropriate communication facilitation between the Deaf and Hearing worlds,” White said. “The communication needs of today’s Deaf community are different from the needs of the Deaf community of 1974 when this program started.
“Deaf people are breaking out and discovering new opportunities that were not common for the community in the past,” he continued. “Today’s sign language interpreters need to hear directly from their main consumer, the Deaf community, what the Deaf community needs their interpreters to know and to do. If sign language interpreters just go about their work based on their own understanding of the Deaf community needs, they are not truly serving the Deaf community. The first and foremost voice in sign language interpreting must be that of the Deaf community. They are the reason sign language interpreters exist, and their communication needs are our primary purpose.”
Following the Deaf Panel, attendees are invited to a “Deaf Social Time with Peter Cook,” planned for 3-5 p.m. in the Lambert Recital Hall. Proctor and students in the College’s Sign Language Club are hosting the reception and providing a warm welcome to the campus.
For more information on the Feb. 1 events, contact Will White at will.white@maryvillecollege.edu.
