TRANSCRIPT: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio4/transcripts/A_Mother_Tongue_Transcript.pdf

WATCH: https://vimeo.com/704623806/102f8798d3

What is the etymology of your being? 

Axel Kacoutié offers a vivid personal essay reflecting on language, bilingualism and the curated gaps they have to navigate in order to access their culture and sense of self.

“Your language is a spell, an invocation speaking you into existence, rediscovering the contours of your morality, the fabric of your race and gender and how you relate to others and the world…”

Featuring the voices of the poet Raymond Antrobus and performance artist Rachel Cheung, Axel weaves together the thoughts of a number of multilingual people - including Derick Armah, Irina Niculescu, Mauricio Loseto, Olivia Melkonian, Radhika Viswanathan and Rosel Jackson Stern - into a reflection on living between languages and finding yourself in the gaps.

Illustration: Erin Tse

Produced by Axel Kacoutié
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4

(TX 17:11:21)

Stream

A Mother Tongue by Axel Kacoutié

A season of The Heart produced by Nicole Kelly and Phoebe Unter with their friends and collaborators.

Mardi Gras Is A State Of Mind

If you could come back as a ghost, would you?

With thanks to Wolfgang Georgsdorf http://georgsdorf.com/ for answering the question.

Full episode here:
https://soundcloud.com/fallingtreeproductions/s4-short-cuts-the-fear-66

Welcome To The Inn (feat. Wolfgang Georgsdorf) [BBC Radio 4, 2013-10-29]

This piece explores the feelings and experiences that go with using public bathrooms as a transgender person. 

It uses a rhythmic, broken storytelling style to take the listener on a sonic journey through some of the anxieties and personal impact that gendered bathrooms have on trans and gender non-conforming people.

I made a lot of the music in this piece. It also features the track 'Juliette' by Podington Bear. The song in the last section is called Open Your Eyes and it's by my band, Sparrow, which I play drums in.

The toilets at home are all gender neutral

Named one of the most anticipated books of 2019 by Vulture, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Oprah.com, Huffington Post, The A.V. Club, Nylon, The Week, The Rumpus, The Millions, The Guardian, Publishers Weekly, and more. Poet Ocean Vuong&rsquo;s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling On Earth We&rsquo;re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family&rsquo;s history that began before he was born &mdash; a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam &mdash; and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We&rsquo;re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one&rsquo;s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard. With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years. Available for purchase at: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H72LJ5V?tag=randohouseinc7911-20">Amazon</a><a href="http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-8373827-11819508?sid=PRHD39095A662&url=http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/?ean=9780525562030">Barnes & Noble</a><a href="http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-8373827-10876509?SID=PRHD39095A662--9780525562030&url=http://www.booksamillion.com/p/9780525562030">Books A Million</a><a href="http://www.hudsonbooksellers.com/book/9780525562023?utm_source=prh&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_term=301&utm_content=PRHD39095A662--9780525562023&utm_campaign=9780525562023">Hudson Booksellers</a><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780525562023?aff=PenguinGroupUS">IndieBound</a><a href="http://www.powells.com/book/-9780525562023?utm_source=randomhouse&utm_campaign=randomhouse&utm_content=PRHD39095A662--9780525562023">Powell's</a><a href="http://goto.target.com/c/128773/81938/2092?subId1=PRHD39095A662--9780525562023&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.target.com%2Fs%3FsearchTerm%3D9780525562023">Target</a><a href="http://linksynergy.walmart.com/fs-bin/click?id=VD9*lkiWNd8&subid=0&offerid=183959.1&type=10&tmpid=273&u1=PRHD39095A662--9780525562023&RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.walmart.com%2Fsearch%2Fsearch-ng.do%3F&RD_PARM2=search_query%3D9780525562023%2526ic%3D16_0%2526Find%3DFind%2526search_constraint%3D3920">Walmart</a><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1435731404?at=11l3IH&ct=PRHD39095A662--9780525562030">Apple Books</a><a href="https://google.prf.hn/click/camref:1011ld4r/pubref:PRHD39095A662--9780525562030/destination:https://play.google.com/store/search?q=9780525562030&c=books">Google Play Store</a><a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/link?id=VD9*lkiWNd8&offerid=258185.12829781935712206&type=2&u1=PRHD39095A662--9780525562030}&murl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kobo.com%2Fsearch%3FQuery%3D9780525562030">Kobo</a>

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, read by Ocean Vuong

SOUTH X SOUTH EAST explore the journey from Southern Africa to South-East London using poetry, music and soundscape.

Editing, poetry, sound design and vocals: Belinda Zhawi 
Contributors: Marysia Osuchowska and Caleb A Nelson 
Producer: NTS

This work was produced for New Creatives, supported by Arts Council England and BBC Arts.

SOUTH X SOUTH EAST - Belinda Zhawi

It's the first time I've gone into this much depth exploring who I am in front of a mic and I hope you find a bit of yourself in my little (re)discoveries.

FULL EPISODE: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0007wvz?fbclid=IwAR2HuSUbv7eEI3GPFo6vHG687gRFW7NBggFcKRHzLAYrulDRF4Bp_B28i44

Full Episode

Short Cuts: How to Remember by Axel Kacoutié

I was mesmerized by the sounds coming out of the mini pinball machines set up around the Longtan Pond in the central part of the Longtan Township in Taoyuan County, south of Taipei in Taiwan. These pinball machines are the electronic versions of the old-school ones that I used to play. The objective of the game is to get the pinballs into as many or as few columns. These machines were equipped with electronic music (single MIDI track) playback of familiar songs such enka standard "Cold Rain Song" (寒雨曲), 70s pop song "Small Town Story" (小城故事) and nursery rhymes "Sweet Home" (甜蜜的家庭). This recording contains not only the amazing pinball MIDI sounds, but also the sounds of my and Carey's re-learning to play these pinball machines and ambient sounds of scooters and trucks.

Mini Pinball Machines in Longtan | 在龍潭大池邊打彈珠

"Leave means leave", whatever that means - an hour of words, sounds, songs and music that bathe in an atmosphere of departure...

. . . so leben wir, und nehmen immer Abschied . . .  . . . so we live, forever in farewell . . .

I feel so grateful to have had the privilege to live in the city of Berlin, from 2013 to 2017. “The ways of my [...] life have led me elsewhere," to borrow a phrase from Christopher Isherwood; I've been saying a long goodbye ever since.

- - - PLAYLIST - - -

Aretha Franklin - Are You Leaving Me? (demo)
Willie Mason - Fear No Pain
Jess Shane - Pretty Saro
Lou Reed - Berlin
Fennesz - Transit (feat. David Sylvian)
Maria Rita - Despedida
Anne Briggs - Blackwater Side
Mable John - Your Good Thing (Is About to End)
Marlais - Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies
Hildegard Knef - Für Mich Soll's Rote Rosen Regnen
Marlais - Pretty Saro
Brian Eno - Three Variations on the Canon in D Major, I. Fulness Of Wind

NTS: Phil's Jazz Dis-junction [2020]

Jazz Dis-junction - Abschiedslieder, Part I. Goodbyes To Europe [NTS Radio, 2020-01-26]

We are wrong to look for uniformity and objectivity. We have all mapped associations to what our subjective experience is like.

My experience of the colour red is different from yours. Our brains light up the same way when hearing water but our relationship to its sounds will never be the same.
Because of this, I wanted to illustrate how I've mapped mine using abstract terms like solitude, sunbathing, patricide etc. All as an attempt to say, "you don't have to understand, I just want to connect and have you see (listen) how I relate to the world."

Also featuring on Radio 4's Short Cuts Episode, Silent Symphonies: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q3p9

A Sound Poem by Axel Kacoutié

We generally think about dance as being something you go and see, but iele paloumpis and their collaborators have developed an approach to audio description for dance that goes way beyond the verbal version of the visual that is traditional for AD for live performance. 

This piece interrogates how a holistic approach to AD can transform the audience experience for everyone, and how access can be artform in and of itself. 


Produced by Jess Shane in collaboration with iele paloumpis, Seta Morton, Krishna Washburn, and Alejandra Ospina. 
Music for this piece was composed by Dan Pencer. 

This piece first aired on BBC Short Cuts in their episode The Interpreter. Listen here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000pfgd

***
This research exploring audio description for dance improvisation was catalyzed by the evening-length dance performance of In place of catastrophe, a clear night sky, which was set to premiere at Danspace Project in May 2020, but has been postponed due to COVID-19. It was directed by iele paloumpis in collaboration with Marielys Burgos-Meléndez, Seta Morton, Alejandra Ospina, Monica Rodriguez, Ogemdi Ude, Krishna Washburn, Adrien Weibgen and Marýa Wethers. For more information, please visit inplaceofcatastrophe.com

This project is made possible, in part, by the Danspace Project Commissioning Initiative and Production Residency Program funded by the Lambent Foundation Fund of the Tides Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; with additional support through a 2019 Movement Research Residency, funded by the Scherman Foundation’s Katharine S. and Axel G. Rosin Fund; and is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC); as well as Dance/NYC's Disability. Dance. Artistry. Dance and Social Justice Fellowship Program, made possible by the generous support of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs CreateNYC Disability Forward Fund and the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, and with additional support from the New York Community Trust. Creative developmental residencies at The Chocolate Factory Theater, Queer|Art Pride at Abrons Arts Center, AUNTS Residency at Mount Tremper Arts, and the Zil Culture Center in Moscow through the GPS/Global Practice Sharing program of Movement Research with funding from the Trust for Mutual Understanding, have also contributed to this ongoing research.

***

Image Description: Performer, Krishna Washburn, dances in Saint Mark's Church during a 2019 rehearsal of iele paloumpis's "In place of catastrophe, a clear night sky". Krishna's back is to the camera, her long black braid drapes down her back. Her arms are extended wide, with fingertips curving upward to create a bowl-like shape, conveying something akin to victory, presentation, pride or praise. A balcony, arched windows and ornate columns can be seen in the background.    Photo Credit for "Krishna at St Marks": Izzy Devine-Carter

Mini Pinball Machines in Longtan | 在龍潭大池邊打彈珠

WF Umi Hsu

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