IL GESTO
Aprimmo
le finestre al cielo notturno... Qual ponte, muti chiedemmo, qual ponte
abbiamo noi gettato sull'infinito, che tutto ci appare ombra di eternitä?
A quale sogno levammo la nostalgia della nostra bellezza?
IL GESTO,
a theatrical work in 16 scenes, was written for Teatro tra le Righe by
Moritz Rinke in the spring Of 1997. Conceived as a work of homage to Dino
Campana, it consists of an experimental text in which both the life of
the poet Dino Campana and his poetry find their place on stage, where
they merge into something which can be considered a valid substitute for
a "scenic reading".
The motivations which led us to dedicate the third project of Teatro tra
le Righe to this particular poet and to request Moritz Rinke to participate
in it were various ones.
Dino Campana,"a
famous unknown author" not only to most Germans but also to many
Italians, was born in Marradi in Tuscany in 1885 and died in the psychiatric
hospital at Castel Pulci in 1932. He was a solitary soul but also exceptional,
the incarnation of the total poet "whose poetry extends throughout
the world and speaks to all in a new language".
Dino Campana's
life was rather tragic, characterized not only by psychological crises
but also by his continuous travels, Iightly passing over things",
by a sense of continuous movernent. He knew several languages and had
a disposition, foreign to many Italians, towards elaborating linguistic
material and viewing it from a multiplicity of points of observation.
This disposition is, like his travels, a manifestation of a particular
cultural custom, and was a way of life to him.
According to a modern definition, he is a European author who belongs
to several different cultures. His artistic production and his life would
have found more recognition if they had been positioned on a bridge of
passage and if this bridge had been given a specific cultural identity.
Nel
paesaggio lente si spostano le rondinelle. Il paesaggio è costituito
dal ponte in riva al secondo fiume.
With his
"foreigner's eye", Dino Campana contributed to the enrichment
of his own culture as well. He is a kind of crossroads, a melting pot
of all the stylistic developments (tendencies) of his day.
The young author Moritz Rinke possesses this same "foreigner's eye"
with which he observes both the characters and the evolution of the drama
within his pieces, using a style in which he bundles up strange liguistic
mixtures into one package. In this respect he shows similarity to Dino
Campana. This was one of the reasons which led us to set up this encounter
between a young German author (born in 1967) and an author who was so
heavily influenced by German culture particularly by Nietzsche. Dino Campana
dedicated his "Canti Orfici" to the emperor William II.
Il valore dell'arte non sta nel motivo ma nel collegamento e quindi nel punto di fusione si ha la grande arte: e la grande arte come la grande vita non è che un ponte di passaggio.
We were also interested in doing a "crosscultural" translation, one which involved sirnultaneously translating from Italian into German and from German into Italian. We were curious to see what would result from this encounter and its accompanying strange mixture of various languages.
I am grateful
to Moritz Rinke for the modesty with which he encountered the students
and their interpretations of Dino Campana, but above all for having understood
the soul of this great poet:
Non
seppi mai come, costeggiando torbidi canali rividi la mia ombra che mi
derideva nel fondo. Mi accompagnava per strade maleodoranti dove le femmine
cantavano nella caldura.
Dino Campana possessed a soul, lost it, found it in his poems and lost it again. We in the modern world feel alone and spend time searching for our souls. Here we would define the soul as the imaginative possibility within us, like a moment of reflection between us and the world. Similar to primitive peoples who have lost the sense of belonging to a social unit, Dino Campana was separated from his family and his sense of community. In order not to die, he transferred his soul to his poetry, which from that moment on became the sole reason for his existence. In making this transfer he responded to a normal exigency among human beings: to find an answer to the problem of their awareness of the decline of life.
Writing
his "Songs of Orpheus" (CANTI ORFICI), he attempted to place
himself at the point of intersection between being and not being. The
myth of Orpheus is that of a man who uses song to overcome the precariousness
of existence and to accept death. The only manuscript of Dino Campana's
poetry, i. e. of his "soul", was lost. The poet attempted to
reconstruct it from memory, but never recovered from this absolute loss.
At this point, Dino Campana had only one alternative, neither totally
logic nor totally tragic, as some would have us believe-. he had to find
a place for himself, both outside of society and outside of time, a place
for those who have no memory. For Dino Campana this place was the psychiatric
hospital of Castel Pulci, where he could live with no fürther consciousness
of decline, the only place where he, at peace, no longer needed anything,
not even his own poetry. There, outside of decline, like an angel, he
refound his soul and therefore hirnself.
Pace
non cerco, guerra non sopporto. Tranquillo e solo vo pel mondo in sogno.
Pieno di canti soffocati. Agogno la nebbia ed il silenzio in un gran porto.
Teresa Zonno
Humboldt-
Universität zu Berlin
Freie Universität Berlin