Across Silence: Orchestra Victoria’s Groundbreaking New Way to Experience Music
A new collaboration between Orchestra Victoria and Newmarket Collective brings Auslan, live chamber music and haptic technology together for one performance only, at North Melbourne’s Meat Market this August.
My daughter started school this year, and a few weeks ago she came down to breakfast singing “One Potato, Two Potato,” her hands moving through each line as fluently as her voice. She’s been learning Auslan, something I never had the chance to at school, so these days I’m often a beat behind her at the breakfast table, watching her sign before I’ve caught the word. Her little sister, not to be left out, gives it a go too, hands going everywhere except where they should. That morning, nobody at the table needed sound to know exactly what was being said, or sung.
It’s part of why I was drawn to Across Silence, a one-off collaboration between Orchestra Victoria and Newmarket Collective that brings Auslan poetry, live chamber music and haptic technology together on the one stage. I interviewed performer Marnie Kerridge ahead of the show about what a concert can be when it’s made for everyone in the room.
Front and centre
One of the first things Marnie wanted me to understand was what this performance isn’t. Audiences who watch Auslan interpretation often focus on the interpreter, commenting on how clever or beautiful the signing looks, something she’s seen play out at concerts and on social media alike. In the process, the Deaf performer can get lost entirely.
Newmarket Collective has deliberately placed Deaf performers front and centre in Across Silence instead, to show what they’re capable of when the right accessible adjustments are made.
She was firm on one point in particular. Referencing disability advocate Stella Young’s well-known critique of “inspiration porn,” Marnie was clear that this isn’t meant to be seen as brave or inspirational. It’s simply Deaf artists sharing their art in a different medium, the same as any other artist.
Being Deaf, she added, doesn’t mean missing out on music, only experiencing it differently. It’s a distinction she returned to more than once, and one worth sitting with before the performance itself.
What is Across Silence?
Across Silence is a collaboration between Orchestra Victoria and Newmarket Collective, presented at Blackwood Box, Meat Market in North Melbourne on Saturday 8 August 2026 at 1.30 pm. It brings together Deaf artists Walter Kadiki and Marnie Kerridge, composer and pianist Andrea Keller, vocalist Gian Slater, conductor Nick Buc, and musicians from Orchestra Victoria and Newmarket Collective.
The performance combines Auslan poetry, live chamber music and vibro-tactile haptic technology developed by Music: Not Impossible.
Kadiki and Kerridge perform wearing haptic vests, body packs, and wrist and ankle bands that translate the live music into vibration across 24 points on the body, and a number of audience members will also be able to experience the performance this way.
The program includes a newly commissioned piece by Kadiki and Keller, and Kerridge’s Auslan interpretation of poems by Walt Whitman, E.E. Cummings, Sara Teasdale and W.B. Yeats, drawn from Keller’s Still Night album and newly orchestrated for chamber ensemble.
Translating poetry into Auslan
Marnie is both a performer and the production’s Auslan Theatre Consultant, a role that sits apart from performing or interpreting. She usually works with interpreters on translation and sign choice from the outside, which lets her judge how well a translation lands in a way that’s harder to do from inside a performance.
Her approach to poetry goes well beyond word-for-word signing. She described returning to the kind of close reading she first learned in Year 12 English literature, working through the meaning, metaphors and metre of a poem before ever considering sign choice. It becomes less about direct translation and more about building a story that fits the emotion of the piece, using the pace of a sign, its handshape, its location, and facial expression to carry meaning and feeling together.
One example she shared: in Walt Whitman’s “Darest Thou Now, O Soul,” the introductory music has the quality of a lament, an emotional cue that isn’t obvious to Deaf audience members.
Marnie has added a short backstory ahead of the poem to set up that sense of grief, a new addition she’s still refining. She’s curious to see how it lands, for Deaf audience members and hearing audience members alike.
Working alongside Kadiki has shifted her thinking too. She’s used to accessing the hearing world through interpreters, so experiencing his poetry directly gave her a new perspective. She sees the addition of music to his work, giving hearing audiences fuller access to it, as the equivalent of what haptic vests offer her: a way of balancing out the different ways we all experience a performance.
What this means for concert-goers
I asked Marnie what a performance like this adds to the long tradition of live orchestral music, one many of us know well from a lifetime of concert-going. Her answer was an invitation to stay curious: there are many ways to experience and enjoy music, through lighting, vibration, captions or Auslan, and just because concerts have always worked one way doesn’t mean they need to stay that way.
Her message to anyone unsure what to expect was simple: come and discover music in a different light.
Tickets and pricing
Tickets can be booked online here.
General Admission
- Adult: $45.00 (+ $3.07 fee)
- Concession/Under 35/Access: $19.00–$35.00 (choice of $19, $25, $29 or $35)
d/Deaf Community (front two rows, prioritising the best visibility of performers and the Auslan interpreter)
- Adult: $45.00 (+ $3.07 fee)
- Concession/Under 35/Access: $19.00–$35.00, set your own amount
- Child (under 18): $19.00 (+ $1.93 fee)
Booking a d/Deaf Community ticket also gives you the option to reserve a haptic vest during checkout. Use of a vest is free, though numbers are limited, so it’s worth booking ahead if this is something you’d like to experience.
Accessibility
- The venue is fully DDA compliant, with step-free, wheelchair accessible access throughout the foyer bar, performance space and bathrooms
- One foyer bar entrance has a small area of cobblestones; an alternative step-free entrance without cobblestones is also available
- Wheelchair seating can be requested at the time of booking, and front-of-house staff will be notified ahead of your arrival
- The entire performance is Auslan interpreted, and cafe staff on site can also take orders in Auslan
- On the day, accessibility queries can be directed to the box office in the foyer
Getting there
Blackwood Box, Meat Market
7 Blackwood St, North Melbourne VIC 3051
Public transport: Parkville Station is about a six-minute walk from the venue (Exit 3, Grattan Street West). The closest tram stop is Royal Melbourne Hospital/Flemington Road (around 350m away), serviced by routes 57, 58 and 59, though only route 58 currently runs partially low-floor trams. The Haymarket & Elizabeth Street stop is also about 350m away and is fully low-floor, serviced by route 19 as well as 57 and 59, though it involves crossing a couple of extra pedestrian crossings. The nearest bus stop is Dowling Place/Wreckyn Street (around 180m), serviced by wheelchair accessible route 402 buses.
Driving: On-street disability permit parking is available around the venue, including free two-hour bays on Courtney Street and Howard Street, and four-hour paid bays (around $4 per hour) on Blackwood Street, Chetwynd Street, Capel Street and Queensberry Street. Always check the signage for current restrictions.
Entry: Enter through the large driveway next to 7 Blackwood Street, which leads to the foyer bar and on to Blackwood Box.
Across Silence Blackwood Box, Meat Market, corner of Blackwood and Tyrone Streets, North Melbourne Saturday 8 August 2026, 1.30 pm
Tickets: events.humanitix.com/across-silence/tickets
Learn more about The Newmarket Collective here.
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