Il vento The wind
tra le radici, in the roots
sotto piedi under feet
calamitati, magnetised,
non si arrende. it doesn't give up.
Se si fermano, If they stop,
i suoi germogli, its sprouts,
si aggrappano. they hold on.
Appesi Hanging,
non mollano. they don't give up.
Sulla spalla resta On the shoulder it remains,
la paura di precipitare the fear of falling
dalla terra alla terra. from earth to earth.
E ripetutamente si fa. And repeatedly we do it.
E per sempre si va. And forever we go.
When a text is translated, it misses something. A word might lose its spice, that touch that makes it more accurate than another. The words used in its native language always have a certain texture to them which changes or gets lost in the process of translation.
Within my practice, I use translation a lot. I translate movement into writing. The dialogue between the two is for me a tool to deeper understand meanings embedded in my actions. Meanings that, at times, I might omit without realizing. Physical and verbal intertwine. It is like looking at movement from different angles. I also take videos of myself. I practice observing from within - being present in the moment while I move, enhancing all my senses and putting my eyes in every single bit of my body and the contact with rope and the space. I then turn to the paper and reflect about what happened through writing, and I observe myself through video. In this process, I see a movement, a gesture, an intention and I go back to the paper, phantasising further about what it is that it might be happening or creating and developing new scenarios of my imagination. A dialogue that fuels possibilities and imagination.
It is a bit like playing Chinese Whispers with myself.
When I translate movement to words and words to movement or when I look at myself from the outside with this mindset, I can let imagination and interpretation take me on a ride. I can go far, starting and ending with myself. It is about being truthful to a certain situation I lived while elaborating it.
When translating something, that something naturally transforms. We experience that same thing but with a twist. At times we add to what we might have been doing, other times it takes us away from our initial purpose or meaning. But overall we can agree that something changes and we should trust wherever our gut, inspiration, imagination, interpretation takes us that day. It is not being stubborn that the idea has to be the initial one, rather it is about where we are able to go with it. My practice gets so exciting this way.
I play to discover corners of myself.
This “inaccuracy” in the translation is inspiration for evolution. It takes me somewhere: The creation of a story, the development of a situation perhaps. A situation inspired from a gesture and so on.
This video is the final result. Today, here, I share with you the process leading to it.
Behind the scenes.
The video and this text is an example of this way of working. I had the idea to combine socks and rope. I watched myself on video and wrote until creating a story line with the purpose to create a short story and record it. There is a beginning, middle and end as well as a purpose, an intention and a feeling that go with it. The steps are not fixed. It is a guided improvisation with a timeline that started from an idea.
I later wrote a poem in Italian and translated it to English so that more people could understand its overall meaning.
I hope some of you will be able to see a connection between my words and movement the same way I do. But I already know that in this final translation, the translation between you and I, things will once again transform into something new.
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