[ ____ ]
Enter CLARA BICALHO MAIA CORREIA. Sophomore. Brazilian. Friend and classmate. Remarkable and perfectly horrid ability to ask unexpected questions.
I first heard the word Saudade from Clara Bicahlo, long before this project ever started, when I first met her. Something she couldn’t quite translate, something famous for being untranslatable, something to do with the feelings we have for the people and things we’ll never have again. Or maybe we will. Maybe it’s painful, maybe that pain is a pleasure. I forgot. Six months later we found ourselves in the same country again, and we got to talking about my project. “Do you remember the word I taught you?”
I began to be fascinated by the idea that perhaps another form of missing existed. My understanding of missing in English was pretty limited. Maybe there was something I’d been feeling all along, but had never had a word for.
We decided to find other Portuguese speakers— “Have you ever heard of Saudade?” We would ask them each to translate it directly and then ask a series of questions that would hopefully invite them to take ownership of the process and use and invent their own methods of translating . As a language-lover, I couldn’t resist the mystique of the word. As a headstrong person, I couldn’t resist the challenge of untranslatability. As a troublemaker, I couldn’t resist what I was sure would become an argument.
Enter CLARI, ALYSSA, ANDREW, CELINA, ISSA, DIOGO, FLORENCIA, JONATHAN, PAULO, and THIAGO.
Once again, we found ourselves in space where rare things not only could be shared, but needed to be. We were working together to translate this word, and as language alone proved insufficient, people reached for anecdotes, colors, and tastes— for personal histories and songs that they loved when they were 14. Not only was the past once again evoked , but a new dimension opened: the internal life of emotion. “What does the presence of an absence feel like for you?” “Do you feel it physically?” “Where?” “Does it hurt?” “Is it necessary?” “How do you make it stop?” Once again I left with better questions as answers, and once again it was in the after and the re-petition of the interactions that I made the greater discoveries.
I wanted this portion of the project to be an audio-piece, so audiences could be immersed in a conversation about Saudade where people spoke in music and memories and menu items from restaurants back home. And so back to processing: transcriptions and uploads, endless cutting and re-cutting of audio. This time it was the editing room where I had my revelation: In the constant shuffling of sound files, searching for commonality and difference, I found a form of performance that allowed me to both listen and speak: to hear the unexpressed thoughts vibrating underneath the texts of each speaker, to find the resonances within these different channels, and to express those harmonies by placing the different voices together. Translating the untranslatable, defining an emotional experience, putting feelings in to words—these were all impossibilities, and the very notion of impossibility was central to one of the defining aspects of Saudade. “You can’t go back.” Saudade, the presence of the absence of those things and people and places you once had, and can never have again.
I first heard the word Saudade from Clara Bicahlo, long before this project ever started, when I first met her. Something she couldn’t quite translate, something famous for being untranslatable, something to do with the feelings we have for the people and things we’ll never have again. Or maybe we will. Maybe it’s painful, maybe that pain is a pleasure. I forgot. Six months later we found ourselves in the same country again, and we got to talking about my project. “Do you remember the word I taught you?”
I began to be fascinated by the idea that perhaps another form of missing existed. My understanding of missing in English was pretty limited. Maybe there was something I’d been feeling all along, but had never had a word for.
We decided to find other Portuguese speakers— “Have you ever heard of Saudade?” We would ask them each to translate it directly and then ask a series of questions that would hopefully invite them to take ownership of the process and use and invent their own methods of translating . As a language-lover, I couldn’t resist the mystique of the word. As a headstrong person, I couldn’t resist the challenge of untranslatability. As a troublemaker, I couldn’t resist what I was sure would become an argument.
Enter CLARI, ALYSSA, ANDREW, CELINA, ISSA, DIOGO, FLORENCIA, JONATHAN, PAULO, and THIAGO.
Once again, we found ourselves in space where rare things not only could be shared, but needed to be. We were working together to translate this word, and as language alone proved insufficient, people reached for anecdotes, colors, and tastes— for personal histories and songs that they loved when they were 14. Not only was the past once again evoked , but a new dimension opened: the internal life of emotion. “What does the presence of an absence feel like for you?” “Do you feel it physically?” “Where?” “Does it hurt?” “Is it necessary?” “How do you make it stop?” Once again I left with better questions as answers, and once again it was in the after and the re-petition of the interactions that I made the greater discoveries.
I wanted this portion of the project to be an audio-piece, so audiences could be immersed in a conversation about Saudade where people spoke in music and memories and menu items from restaurants back home. And so back to processing: transcriptions and uploads, endless cutting and re-cutting of audio. This time it was the editing room where I had my revelation: In the constant shuffling of sound files, searching for commonality and difference, I found a form of performance that allowed me to both listen and speak: to hear the unexpressed thoughts vibrating underneath the texts of each speaker, to find the resonances within these different channels, and to express those harmonies by placing the different voices together. Translating the untranslatable, defining an emotional experience, putting feelings in to words—these were all impossibilities, and the very notion of impossibility was central to one of the defining aspects of Saudade. “You can’t go back.” Saudade, the presence of the absence of those things and people and places you once had, and can never have again.
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