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What happens…
A record player and two records:
The “Mauthausen Trilogy” which is a cycle of four arias with lyrics based on poems written by Greek poet Iakovos Kambanellis, a Mauthausen concentration camp survivor, and music written by Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis. It has been described as the “most beautiful musical work ever written about the Holocaust”.
The second record is Joan’s Karasevich Reflections, a selection of Ukrainian favorites with texts from the poet Taras Shevchenko.
I change records, after the last song, a scratching rythmical sound like a distorted heartbeat fills the room.
All the participants get a small paper filled with poetry by Shevchenko.
With a thin yellow string I write the the first words of this poem on the floor, I am inviting the participants to murmur the text I handed out, in this sea of voices and murmuring, I pack all my things and put them in a blue basket, the string is slowly unfolding the words as I leave the scene with the yellow string attached to the basket, the murmuring and whispering of the poetry by Shevchenko is following me as if they are echo’s of an abandoned world.
The String edition 2 was part of the RIPA festival 2022 in Montreal, where I as well had the pleasure to be the mentor of the young emerging artists.
credit: Davis Hepnar
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