Music blares and harsh bursts of light illume the stage. As men in tank tops and tight shorts shimmy and strut across the platform, a woman in a long black gown stands in the periphery, giving the crowd a series of provocative full-body gestures. That woman, Dawn Stevenson, has provided English-to-American Sign Language (ASL) translation at UMD drag shows for several years, but she cringes at the mention of her role in the event.
“I just think there’s something wrong with a person my age, on stage, graphically describing certain things,” joked Stevenson, 51. “Now that kids in the audience are my kids’ age, it’s kind of disconcerting and weird.”
Stevenson said she still works drag shows, usually beside fellow interpreter Kathleen Youngblom, for two reasons. First: She enjoys it. Second: The University hasn’t found anyone interested in taking over.
“I was just at an interpreter conference where the average age at my table was 50,” Stevenson said in November. “I said to all the people present, ‘This is going to be a problem. In a couple years we’re going to age out for some events.’
“We’re aging as a cluster up here. Many of us are in this older group and think we need to invite young people to be in the field and come to Duluth.”
There are 20 state-certified interpreters working in and around Duluth, estimated Nancy Diener, an assistant professor in the UMD Deaf Studies Program. Three of those 20 hold positions at UMD, but the University outsources some events, as it does with Youngblom for drag shows.
Diener said there are “lots of younger interpreters” waiting to fill vacated positions at UMD. In the early 1990s the University hired a small team of interpreters that is still in place.
“When these interpreters were hired 20 years ago or so, they were young,” Diener said. “They’ve just chosen to stay here.”
Stevenson was one of the interpreters contacted by Diener about coming to UMD in the early 1990s.
At the time, Stevenson had a love interest in Duluth and was working as an interpreter in the Twin Cities.
“It was an ambush,” Stevenson said. “They were crying for interpreters [in Duluth]. I felt like, ‘Well, what’s to keep me from doing that?’”
Stevenson took the UMD job and moved to Duluth seven years after first being exposed to sign language in a Signed English (sign language with English grammar and word order) course she took in college.
“I didn’t realize until three years later … that I was learning something that (people who are deaf) didn’t feel was attractive or useful in any way,” Stevenson said. “They told me I signed like a hearing person.”
Stevenson went back to school and learned ASL.
After completing an intensive summer course and a nine-month program, Stevenson met the Minnesota interpreter-certification criteria, which were tightened by state statute in 1994.
Still, Stevenson said it took her a year to feel “competent” conversationally with people who are deaf.
“It was assumed I could do the job of interpreter,” Stevenson said. “I certainly could not. But that’s the way we were churning out interpreters at the time.”
Stevenson said in the early 1980s interpreters were so sparse in the area that people who weren’t qualified were hired.
“It was not the best for the deaf community and not the best for the interpreting community,” Stevenson said. “But it was what was needed.”
While pursuing a career interpreting in the Twin Cities, Stevenson supplemented her income by bar tending.
“There wasn’t a lot of free time,” she said. “But the free time I had, I spent around deaf people.”
A few years later, Stevenson was contacted by Diener, who convinced her to interview for the UMD job.
Stevenson said Duluth was a better fit for her than the Twin Cities.
“I felt much more comfortable here and there were more supports in place,” Stevenson said. “And then I’ve been here 23 years.”
During that time Stevenson has interpreted drag shows, plays, social gatherings and a lot more. She interpreted Bill Clinton’s talk at UMD in 2012, as well as talks by Joe Lieberman and Paul Wellstone during the pair’s visit to campus in 2002.
“I can go and be as close to a Broadway musical as I am to you,” Stevenson said. “Maybe I wouldn’t have put the ticket money out, but now you’re going to pay me to be on the stage with these people? This is awesome.”