In the gallery space, the audience will have the possibility to experience language in different forms language - in the shape of written text, maps of the distribution of different languages, cartography of different languages in the brain.
This space will contain several station where the audience can interact with these in their own time, essentially a design for them to take in information in different ways.
The texts will be written by several writers from different nationalities, blending their own languages with English, as the shared language understood by all.
Below, all my exemplifications will be in Romanian and containing Romanian references, as a prototype to use when thinking about working in two languages (in my case, Romanian and English).
'Cartography of languages, accents, dialects'
The pieces of text could be mapped out onto the human body shape, like so:
Inspired by research around the cartography of languages in the brain, I have compiled a file of visuals to be used and transformed into an interactive element in the gallery.
Similarly to how different regions of the brain are allocated for the usage or recognition of different semantics, we could have an interactive map where the audience can explore how the brain 'behaves' when a person is speaking multiple languages or is switching between them. A useful resource to for our creative team, guided by a neuroscientist, could be found here.
An area where 'untranslatable' words in different languages are 'displayed' in different forms to explain the meaning of the word - there can be images or visual representations that capture the essence of the word, accompanied by an audio piece, or the texture of a particular object or fabric - all to create the experience of that particular word for a foreigner.
Below is an example where I use the Romanian word 'dor' with some research and potential inspiration for how to create this installation:
Other texts to be exhibited could be fragments from writings or quotes by various bilingual/multilingual writers or artists who wite about living in exile, the notion of 'home' or belonging. A brief example with two such authors can be found below:
Since the texts will be in several languages, behind or alongside them there can be maps showing the distribution of that writer's mother tongue in the world - it can be their particular diaspora in the world - as a way to show to the audience visually how widespread this phenomenon is, how many languages are in fact spoken everywhere on the globe. This is intended to provide a feeling of community.
Here is an example with the distribution of the Romanian diaspora alone:
Note about TRANSLATION - across the performance experience
The intention for the audience is to experience the crossing from one language into another without translation provided, in an attempt to stylise the language in a way that could highlight gaps in understanding and this switching from one language to another - so familiar to speakers of more than one or two languages.
However, translation of the words in Romanian (in this particular case) is provided for the creative team and the collaborators to the performance score with the purpose of understanding the content, which will in turn influence and shape what aesthetic solutions we find for the visual, sound and other accompanying languages throughout the performance.
Text structure, content
The ‘patches’ of text follow a thread of themes, exploring how languages come up in various instances:
-when expressing feelings or feeling my feelings – how does one language or the other manifest through me in painful situations or in ecstatic ones?
-having foreigners assume different things about me based on the language I speak;
-having instances of feeling that I ‘don’t belong’ even while being with very close friends, when those friends are from what we would call ‘monolinguist cultures’ (such as the UK);
-camaraderie with speakers of other languages, bonding through the sameness in otherness;
-thinking of languages sensorially – what sensations they evoke in my body, where can I locate them on my body in the different instances when I speak either English, Romanian, or when I sink into the dialect of the region I am from (Banat), or that where my grandmother is originally from (Oltenia) – dialect and accent I grew up with and that I slip into every single time I so much as set foot on her doorstep.
Note: While the texts below are all written from my own perspective, the other writer-performers I will collaborate with, coming from different cultural backgrounds and having different experiences, might choose to express different themes or to use the languages they speak in a different style.
Playlist with songs used for inspiration - the sounds can be used in the gallery, in the performance segment, as well as during the workshops and improvisation sessions.
The songs are, in their majority, a blend of Romanian folk sounds with contemporary electronic elements, rock sounds, rap or hip hop - similarly to the hybridisation of language itself, it can be a fitting way of understanding this distillation of multiple elements.
SOUND - MUSIC
Music is a very important factor and instrument for me, both in the creative process of writing, movement or visual improvisation, as well as being an integrative element and even a performing element in the structure of a story or a performance.
Here is another playlist with songs that inspired movements and the concept for the performance. ♫
Visual images would be projected on the walls behind and surrounding the performers, perhaps with an element of motion as well, to ensure a smoother transition between the visuals.
What Option 2 offers is more generous in terms of audience experience, since it involves more active interaction, the selection of a story from a particular language background, the possibility to view more than one story.
The projections on the wall/ in the space could potentially work in this variation as well.
They will be the same as in Option 1, following the principle of 'fragmentation', 'de-composition - re-composition'.
The movement could be part as either the filmed performances or projected as shadows on the wall(s).
These aspects are, again, to be worked out with the directors, the visual artist and the technicians.
For this segment, extensive consultation with the directors, technicians, visual artist as well as the performers will be scheduled.
Together, we will workshop ideas and come to a decision as to what form to present the performance stories as.
Below is my process of developing and describing the two options I considered so far.
This would be a monologue and movement piece, with one performer at a time telling their story, while the other three performers acting as ensemble and focusing on movement.
The monologue will comprise of different flashes of personal stories reflecting the condition of being bilingual or multilingual and the relationship between language, identity, sentiments of displacement or belonging. Taking turns, rotating between them, they would all have expressed fragments of personal experiences as bilinguals/multilinguals, weaving a story in which we can recognise both elements of individuality and community alike.
The envisioned performance would be approximatively 10-15 minutes and would happen on a loop, ending and commencing anew.
The audience would come into the space at different times, depending how long each takes in the previous segment in the gallery, thus starting to experience the performance from whichever point of it they walked in on. This is intended to enhance the sensation of fragmentation and the challenge of allowing gaps in understanding, however much we would want to have the illusion of control, of the promise of fitting all the puzzle pieces together sequentially.
I imagined the dancers/ movement ensemble as each representing a manifestation of one of the languages (and/or dialects) spoken by the performer who recounts their story in a given moment.
Several sessions with the movement director and the performers would be scheduled in order to discover together how the movement can be incorporated as storytelling.
In my vision, the ensemble would each have one distinct movement or gesture that they would repeat throughout, maybe by the end “borrowing” each other’s gestures, reflecting so an amalgamation of (sociolinguistic) identities overlapping each other, spilling into one another. Similarly, in movements together, such as counter-balancing using a partner or giving-taking each other’s weight, push-pull – could be a way of exploring the alchemic process of mixing identities at its most intense.
Here are a few notes I took after doing myself an improvised movement and visualisation exercise/exploration having this aspect of the performance in mind:
Some of the (unfinished) texts proposed for this segment of the performance - to be further workshopped. To be either used as a prototype for the creation of the other texts in the other languages of the performance, depending on the languages spoken by the writer-performers - or to be used alonside them, extracting images or paragraphs from them.
The sencond option for this segment would involve pre-filming five story-monologues in five different languages (or in the hybrid style English + mother tongue of the perfromer). When selected by a member of the audience, these would play, being projected on a wall or a white screen.
This option has the potential of giving the audience more choice in the selection the stories themselves, based on the languages avaible in an audio guide.
All of the technical details and logistics of this endeavour will need to be discussed with the technicians.
The prototypes of texts to be workshopped as the same as in Option 1 from above, with the difference that for this pre-filmed variation, the texts will need to be shorter, 3 to 5 minutes.
In terms of consuming/interacting with video material, the experience is different than that of watching a live performance, the brain and the human body reacting and focusing differently in the two different modes. In a filmed and edited product, the human eye will follow the cuts and the composition with all its elements as intended and executed by the filmmakers - whereas in a live performance, the eyes of the audience can seek for itself where to focus its gaze. This consideration will be of utmost importance in the choosing of one option or the other, keeping in mind the experience we want to design for the audience.
Those who choose not to participate in the workshop will exit through a different place than the way they entered the gallery and installation.
They will be given a 'parting gift':
-something to take away;
-something to make them think about what the experience resonated in them;
-something that challenges their perception AND that makes them feel like they belong.
While I do not have a solution for this aspect yet, I consider that the most beneficial would be to test it, in order to ask someone who would experience this as a participant - what THEY need at the end of this journey.
As an incipient stage of this testing, I have asked friends who speak more than one language what they would want to experience at the end - what they would want to feel like, or receive.
An offering was to relate the takeaway gift to a QR code that would lead to a website with more information about the somatic and neurolinguistic aspects of multilingualism. While this could be a good option for participants who have hearing or sight difficulties and would struggle in the physical installation space, more research needs to go into how this would link to accessibility and what the most fitting approach could be. Also, we would need to consider that the participants could have different ages or possibilities or might not be so tech savvy as to handle this form of interaction.
For testing this aspect, a diverse group of participants would be the most relevant.
At the end of the performance journey, I consider it important that all participants - whether they chose Option A or Option B of participation - are bid farewell with the same gesture, hence the thought for them to exit the same way and to be given a takeaway gift.
Although their journeys were somehow different in terms of the performance strucure - and possibly fundamentally different in terms of their own internal journeys, it is important to maintain an athmosphere of belonging throughout.
After the session is concluded, the participants will be guided to exit the same direction that the audience who chose Option B (only participating in the first two parts of the performance experience) did.
Workshop led by a facilitator (an arts practitioner experienced in somatic practices) -to last aproximately 15-20 minutes;
-group size: maximum 10 people at once;
-the facilitator would start by briefly explaining the somatic links between - language - brain - body (which they will have gained more knowledge about having had a session with the neuroscientist) in order to place into context the information they have experienced in the previous two sections of the installation;
-they would then lead the participants into a gentle movement session, leading to focussing on the flow quality of movement as a default movement they can later go into when doing an exercise related to thinking about the languages they speak - this movement variation is for the participants who are able to stand and move, otherwise they can simply listen to the facilitator's guidance as a meditative form to help them relax and ground themselves - the exercise will be adjusted according to the abilities of the participants present;
*We would specify on the tickets that it includes movement and that different abilities are welcome and the facilitator will adapt the work to everyone's capabilities - and they are welcome to engage to the level they feel comfortable with and only in the parts they wish to engage in.
-the participants will then be led into a guided exercise where they will be invited to associate languages to parts of their body and to attribute colours to the various languages they speak - this is meant to invite participants to find an embodiment for the different linguistic identities living inside them, to give those a form that they themselves can control, play with, observe, and to see how the different langauges can co-exist without. Special attention must be payed so that we don't imply that there is a definitive resolution for how languages manifest in our (their) identities or that they occupy an equal space - that would be innacurate, as every participant's personal history differs from one another. It is rather an acknowledgement of the existence and value of each of those languages (both-and rather than either/or).
A loose structure for the exercise could be:
-DRAWING
Materials like paper and colours will be provided for the participants.
One of the walls will have blocks of white paper attached to it, so that participants can be encouraged to draw the outline of their body and use colours to fill in which parts of their body they have associated with their respective spoken languages in the guided exercise from earlier.
-REFLECTIVE WRITING
The participants will be invited to reflect on the guided exercise (and/or the entire experience) through a free flow writing exercise. They can do this stream of consciousness writing with their eyes open or closed, using the outline drawn earlier to write over or separate sheets of paper.
AIMS of the workshop:
-to provoke how participants think about languages;
-to integrate the information about multilingualism taken in during the previous two sections of the experience;
-to gain a somatic understanding of how languages and how thinking about them and our identity can manifest in the body;
-to provide a safe space for the exploration of all of the above and to foster a sense of community and individuality at the same time.
