image: Mafalda Miranda Jacinto

Babel. The resonance of language

Before you say anything. Before you articulate your thoughts with words. Before you formulate it into speech, a phrase, a chain of words. Before the “before” emerges as a “before”. Before all that, your body initiatives a quaint mode of preparedness. It causes slight vibrations in particular parts of your physical being. It activates an inner structure, located, perceptible and sensing in a similar manner as your neural, circulatory or endocrine system. I would say: “It activates the anatomical configuration of a language”. And depending what language you want to speak - the shape of this structure within your body differs.

The research project Babel. The resonance of language starts from a hypothesis that each language has different resonant points in the body, Those places get activated while speaking, thinking, listening or reading in a given language. Their activity causes different perception of one’s physical presence.I speculate that: That through each language one operates on different frequencies of communication. That different linguistic structures allows naming the reality with specific peculiarity.

I am looking for formulation of my ongoing artistic exploration of the relationship between text and movement. By developing this research project I see a potential of producing a series of tools and methods of working with text in choreographic practice. I aim to initiate the specular research connecting somatic knowledge together with cultural and biological content to reflect on:

How is the embodied knowledge of language influencing the physical relation to the socio-political environment?

What is the potential of multilingualism in terms of reality perception?

Can a set of languages provide a complex vision and understanding of the contemporaneity?

What are the possible ways of storing and working with the knowledge through the body in the context of the theory of the resonant points of language?

Works:
Babel. The resonance of language

Lecture performance

“Before you say anything. Before you articulate your thoughts with words. Before you formulate it into speech, a phrase, a chain of words. Before the “before” emerges as a “before”. Before all that, your body initiates a quaint mode of preparedness. It causes slight vibrations in particular parts of your physical being. It activates an inner structure, located, perceptible and sensing in a similar manner as your neural, circulatory or endocrine system. I would say: “It activates the anatomical configuration of a language”. And depending what language you want to speak - the shape of this structure within your body differs.”

How do you know that you know a language?
Em que momento se sabe que se conhece uma língua?
How do you recognise it in you?
Does it become in your body as a new sense?

This lecture performance is a choreographic experimentation on the physical features of speech. It derives from a hypothesis that: each learnt language builds-in as a new structure within the body (…) or rather that by learning a language each person creates their own new anatomy (…) or (...) How does one react, when encountering new linguistic reality within and around?

concept & performance: Bartosz Ostrowski
collaboration: Alina Ruiz Folini
light design: Zuzana Režná
sound design: Kamil Tuszyński
Acknowledgements: Espaço Alkantara, Sinara Suzin, Companhia Olga Roriz,, Florent Golfier, AINO, Zuzanna Berendt & Anna Majewska, prof. dr. Barbara Mertins, students of psycholinguistics laboratories in TU Dortmund and Aleksandra & Zdzisław Ostrowscy

premiere 26.09.2022, PONEC - dance venue, Prague, Czech Republic

The lecture performance “Babel. The resonance of language” is second, after researching French, performative work of the cycle, in which the author examines the Portuguese language.

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︎Recording︎

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/2024/

Blurrylingualism
dancing between languages
TOOLKIT

28/11/2024
Lowitův mlýn, Prague, Czechia
How to dance with different languages - a workshop on linguistic choreography and the launch of the toolkit.
The event was supported by Adam Mickiewicz Institute www.iam.pl

In 2024, the team of artists met for a Polish residency at the Krakow Choreographic Centre and focused on sharing and publishing the results of the research to date. It included the publication of a toolkit Blurrylingualism - dancing between languages, which serves to share the results of the artistic research with other artistic professionals and the wider public who would like to playfully experiment with multilingualism.

The launch of the toolkit and an introductory workshop on its use, took place on Thursday 28 November in the Velký Mlýn. During the workshop, the creators shared exercises and tools they have created and gathered during their research, which are detailed in the publication. The exercises playfully work with multilingualism, mixing languages and finding new meaning where the old one has disappeared.

The workshop may be of particular benefit to students and professionals in the fields of linguistics, choreography, performance studies and drama education, and may also be appreciated by people bridging literature and physicality, dance and voice, and people in education and social services who work with bilingual and multilingual groups. Visitors are able to try out the choreographic tools developed. The whole event is an invitation to a "language greenhouse" where new ways of knowing are cultivated and diversity is nurtured.

The team is open to offer such workshop format in the upcoming future.

The toolkit is available in PDF, as well as in printed version - please contact.

Further information about the context.

/2023/
Blurrylingualism - Encounter inbetween languages

Research Residency with FLORENT GOLFIER, MICHAELA DASKOVÁ, ANNA MAJEWSKA, ZUZANNA REŽNA AND DR JOANNA PĘDZISZ (UMCS LUBLIN).

SUPPORTED BY:
Performing Artists Residency - Visegrad Fund Program
Culture Move Europe - Mobility Grant

This work was produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.

Residencies took place in February and July in Workshop Foundation Budapest.

Documentation timeline︎︎︎

Further details - to be published soon.

The Babel Laboratory, Technische Universitaet Dortmund

07 - 11 / 02 / 22

with Pracownia Kuratorska: Anna Majewska and Zuzanna Berendt, Florent Golfier, prof. dr. Barbara Mertins and AINO.

Realised thanks to the support of Adam Mickiewicz Institute.

BLURRYLIGUALISM LABORATORY IN STUDIO ALTA, PRAGUE ︎︎︎

03 - 06 / 09 / 2020

with Florent Golfier/tYhle (FR/CZ), AINO (GER/RUS), Laura Brechmann (GER), Prof. Dr. Barbara Mertins (CZ/GER)

Our Babel laboratory deals with different layers of multilingualism. Through movement and voice-work, we will focus on our relationship to different languages, on the act of speaking and on multilingual thinking. The Lab is opening up an experimental space to meet, to discuss and to explore. We want to blurry lines and borders; we want to get in movement with all our languages and playfully ask what happens between us when we get involved in the fluctuating ambiguity of the world.

This research, initiated by Florent Golfier (tYhle) and Laura Brechmann, identifies as an exploratory, collaborative artistic research practice, aiming to contribute to cultural and social development and empowerment. For each version we are teaming up with collaborative partners from different disciplines and countries to get inspiration from.

WORK-IN-PROGRESS

Presentation
Polish Dance Platform 2019

Gdańsk, Poland

I have launched the project with the initial work-in-progress presentation of the above written concept on the Polish Dance Platform 2019 in Gdańsk. The showing, which took place in the Spichlerz Opacki (Granary) - National Museum in Gdańsk, Department of Ethnography on 8th of September was the first step in exploring the very moment of learning a new language and introducing new vibrations of (in that case) French language to personal body, conducted in dialogue with the audience.

Comment réalise-tu que tu connais une langue?
How do you know that you know a language?
How do you recognise it in you?
Does it get born in your body as a new organ?

The performance Babel. The resonance of language is a choreographic experimentation on the physical features of speech. In reference to George Lakoff’s principles of embodied cognition,the author is looking for the somatic potential of language knowledge. He will try out the ways through which the body is capable of translating | traduire.

Concept and performance: Bartosz Ostrowski
Dramaturgy: Rocio Berenguer Roldan
Initial performance: 08.09.2019, ETNO, Etnographic Museum in Gdansk, National Museum in Gdansk
The presentation of the concept will take place on the Polish Dance Platoform 2019.
http://www.polskaplatformatanca.pl/pl/2019/wydarzenia-towarzyszace/bartosz-ostrowski-babel-the-resonance-of-language-

The work was created in Performing Arts Forum (PAF) in St. Erme, France, thanks to the support of residential grant from the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.

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How do you know that you know a language?
Comment réalise-tu que tu connais une langue?
Comment reconnais-tu la langue française en toi?
In which part of your body a new language gets born?

Le performance Babel. La résonance du langage est une premier du cycle les œuvres chorégraphiques de Bartosz Ostrowski sur caractéristiques physiques de la parole. En référence à cognition l’embodiment, l’artiste cherche le potentiel somatique de la connaissance du langage et sa résonance dans le corps.

Concept et performance: Bartosz Ostrowski
Dramaturgie: Rocio Berenguer Roldan
Initial performance: 08.09.2019, ETNO, Etnographic Museum in Gdansk, National Museum in Gdansk
The presentation of the concept will take place on the Polish Dance Platoform 2019.

L'œuvre a été créée en Performing Arts Forum (PAF) in St. Erme, France, grâce au soutien de la subvention résidentielle de Adam Mickiewicz Institute.