Performance @ionioncenterfortheartsandc2179 - part 5

This is the final performance of a project developed at the Ionion Center for the Arts and Culture during an art residency in August 2022, where I created a work called “Ancient Sounds of the Island” in Kefalonia, Greece.

The idea was to collect sounds that represent the island of Kefalonia, ranging from expressions from nature to human traditions, and to embed them in minimalist music compositions.
The purpose was to create a meditative sound experience and to bring out a voiced identity of the island through an “artistic repository of sounds”.

In the fifth part of the performance I decided to pay homage to a poet from Kefalonia called Nikos Kavvadias and recite his poem: “Mal du départ”.

MAL DU DEPART

Always the perfect, unworthy lover
of the endless voyage and azure ocean,
I shall die one evening, like any other,
without having crossed the dim horizon.

For Madras, Singapore, Algeria, Sfax,
the proud ships will still be setting sail,
but I shall bend over a chart-covered desk
and look in the ledger, and make out a bill.

I'll give up talking about long journeys,
My friends will think I've forgotten at last;
my mother will be delighted: she'll say
"A young man's fancy, but now it's passed."

But one night my soul will rise up before me,
and ask, like some grim executioner, "Why?"
This unworthy trembling hand will take arms
and fearlessly strike where the blame must lie.

Κι εγώ που τόσο επόθησα μια μέρα να ταφώ
σε κάποια θάλασσα βαθειά στις μακρινές Ινδίες,
θα `χω ένα θάνατο κοινό και θλιβερό πολύ
και μια κηδεία σαν των πολλών ανθρώπών τις κηδείες.

Video by Ioustini Drakoulakou
Sound by Joro Boro from @beingsound