Homage to the "Writer" Pablo Picasso
The project "Voicing Europe - Homage to the 'Writer' Pablo Picasso and his Contemporaries," is the result of a long-term cooperation between Laboratorio Teatro Tra Le Righe, Berlin, and European universities in Berlin, Barcelona and Oxford, the cultural association Guadalupe Lo Spazio Per Le Arti, Volterra, and the theatre companies Replica of Stockholm and Zerbrochene Fenster of Berlin.
The main objectives of the project, aside from the development of new methods of approach toward European languages and literature, is to introduce an interdisciplinary mode of thought to the research and transmission of knowledge using multimedia and experimental theatre. We live today on the threshold of an era that is moving away from a linear, abstract schematic world. A multi-dimensional, many-layered, complex reality is opening up, in which new forrns of speech, writing and thought are becoming necessary. The new media has rendered invalid the linear approach to concepts of tirne and space, yet has awakened possibilities for multidirnensionality and simultaneity.
As early as the 1920s, the introduction of new technologies was calling into question habits of logical-deductive thought in the sciences. In physics, the concept of curvature revolutionized traditional notions of space, something that was also reflected in art. In painting, an attempt was made to transcend the purely linear through a multi-dimensional interaction between figure and background. Cubism is perhaps the best representation in painting of our acoustic space, as it depicts all the aspects of an object simultaneously, overruling the classical illusion of perspective in favor of an immediate awareness of a totality
In his play "Le disir attrapipar la queue," written in 1941 and presented scenically for the first time in 1944 by the Leiris and directed by Albert Camus, Pablo Picasso, one of the most representative artists of Cubism, carried this approach further as a writer. His play, which he describes as "an experiment with French wordsounds," reveals his wish to extend the multi-dimensional art form he achieved in painting to artistic forms based on the written word.
The experimental aspect of "Voicing Europe" represents a methodological approach toward learning and the transmission of knowledge that proceeds from the written text, through vocal and choreographic exploration, to arrive at a performative representation that embodies this multi-dimensionality. This learning process, central to the concept of the project, may engender thoroughly unexpected results, as the foreignness of a new language cannot be overcorne through the simple translation of word meanings. Only a conscious immersion in the sound structures of a language can allow it to be discovered and explored in all its dirnensions and meanings specific to the personal and cultural experience of the individual. Theatre is the ideal medium for this purpose, as it is traditionally a place in which language is manifested spatially - in sound, gesture and patterns of meaning.
Following this concept, the written words of Picasso's text, analyzed by Raffaele Pinto, Nicola Sani and Prof. Andrzej Wirth, have been arranged into a libretto by Prof. Wirth, and elaborated upon acoustically by the composer Nicola Sani to form a composition of French, Italian and German voice and word-sounds. This composition, "Deshabiller le silence," formed the basis for experimental work with participants from various European countries, in which individual response and reaction to the various sonorities and expressive potential of different languages was explored. In experimental workshops led by the choreographer Prof. Ernma Lewis Thomas, directors Arne Baut-Worch and Jurek Sawka and theatre studies professor Prof. Andrzej Wirth, each language group (English, German, Italian and Swedish) translated these word-sound experiments into movement, and other spontaneous forms of expression, in order to explore possible cultural differences in the kinesthetic interpretation of linguistic sound patterns. The results of the workshops, recorded on video, inspired the performance "Aside" by the Swedish director Jurek Sawka.
The aesthetics of language are rooted in the spoken word - the particular beauty of language demands a capacity for sophisticated acoustic perception which is, however, moulded by the hearirig habits of a speech community. Peopie of different nations, even of different regions, hear differently and therefore interpret similar phonetic and tone structures in dissimilar ways. This issue naturally arises in the context of European multi-lingualism.
Yet the 'return to the spoken word' heralded by the increasing prevalence
of multimedia does not presuppose corresponding development in the capacity
for perception and expression. On the contrary, an increasing fragmentation
of sensory perception, speech development and thought can be observed,
even among younger generations that have grown up with the new media.
lt is this 'return to orality' that forms the basis for the research aspect
of the project. In a series of lectures and seminars, culminating in a
round table on the "Sonority of European Languages and the Return
of Oral Tradition," hosted by the Freie Universität Berlin,
the role of Pablo Picasso as an exponent of "the culture of the bridge"
was examined and Cubism analyzed as a possible precursor to multimedia
dynamics in contemporary European culture. The results were subsequently
evaluated and discussed with reference to how different linguistic sound
structures can best be conveyed in the developrnent of new didactic methods
for foreign language acquisition.
"Voicing Europe" represents an attempt to develop methods based
on theatre performed in foreign languages, to encourage young people in
particular to think intuitively, and to discover, not just as abstract
knowledge but through real and sensory experience, the beauty of the different
European languages.
Dr. Teresa Zonno, Berlin