An Analysis of Performances Based on the Oral Translation of Psalms and Judges 4-5 into Altai.

The Altai translation team orally translated for performance Psalms 1, 100 and 133 and the story of Deborah in Judges 4-5, and then presented this in the form of a concert to over 120 people in Altai. The team have now performed 12 multimodal concerts in the Republic of Altai, Siberia. The team used local genres such as throat singing, dance, costumes and instruments in order to present the biblical material. After each concert the audience gave their impressions and opinions of what they saw and heard and answered questions in focus groups related to the performance. This paper is an analysis of the audience’s varying responses to the concert and recommendations for culturally sensitive performances based on oral Bible translations for the future. This presentation will help other translation teams with the question of how to design a performance based on the oral translation of biblical texts, taking into account traditional cultural genres.