~ Nationality: Russia ~
The Hair of Literature by George Uallick and Zhanna Shibalo
A videopoem by the Russian Latvian collective Orbita (“Orbit”), made in 2001—I assume on videotape—and uploaded to Vimeo six months ago. Artur/Artūrs Punte and Diana Palijchuk are credited with making the video, the text is by George Uallick and Zhanna Shibalo, and The Trilobitum Coitus supplied the music. I love the fast-paced, playful energy here, making me re-play it multiple times despite not feeling that I entirely understand it. The main thing is, it’s fun and imaginatively shot and edited, and I remain intrigued.
One of my favorite poetry publishers, Brooklyn-based Ugly Duckling Presse, came out with an excellent bilingual anthology, Hit Parade: The ORBITA Group, in 2015. You can read Kevin M.F. Platt’s introduction, along with several of his translations, online at Deep Baltic. Here’s an excerpt that may or may not shed light on what exactly Uallick and Shibalo mean by “pits overgrown with ancestors” and “the hair of literature”:
Paradoxically, while they eschew nostalgia for the Soviet past, the poets of Orbita are the actual heirs to the legacy of cutting edge and experimental culture characteristic of Latvia in the last Soviet decades. Orbita is an intentionally trans-ethnic and trans-linguistic phenomenon. And this is one of the keys to its success: theirs is an avant-garde of cosmopolitan hybridity. In distinction from the majority of Russian cultural production of the Baltic region, these poets transcend marginality and provincialism by forming a literary bridge between ethnic enclaves, languages, and cultures.
Note: Long-time readers of Moving Poems may recall that I uploaded an earlier, lower-resolution YouTube version of this video back in 2011. Rather than simply edit that post, I decided to delete it and post afresh so others can enjoy re-watching it as much as I did.
Semechki (Семечки) by Eta Dahlia
Be sure to click the CC icon for English subtitles.
A fascinating collaboration between Russian poet and filmmaker Eta Dahlia and UK poet and artist Iris Colomb. It grew out of a residency at the Center for Recent Drawing, one of “a series of experimental translations of Eta Dahlia’s minimalist Russian poems into gestural drawings,” Colomb writes, which were
entirely process-led. I made use of my limited knowledge of Russian, allowing me to experience the poems phonetically without semantic bias. Translating the poems’ sounds into gestures became the basis of my systemic approach.
I listened to each poem repeatedly for an hour, interpreting each sound as a separate movement tracing a line. Throughout this process my repetitive gestural sequences produced an increasingly intricate network of lines, generating a tightly layered shape. My movements evolved with each iteration, the drawing itself exposing their range.
The resulting compositions became complex maps of my changing perception; areas and textures displaying different levels of conviction and doubt, making these drawings both translations and documents of performance.
The video was featured in 3:AM Magazine last September as part of their Duos series.
Life, Life by Arseny Tarkovsky
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It’s always fascinating to see how different poetry-film makers will deploy the same text. In his film, Cameron Michael juxtaposes the dreamy text and soundtrack with time-lapse shots of New York City, while in Exiles, Bangladeshi director Amirul Rajiv uses black-and-white footage of a vast Rohingya refugee camp. Which is a better fit? How does our understanding of the poem change from one film to the other?
Poetry-film fans should recognize the name Arseny Tarkovsky: his son, the great Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, included his father’s poems in some of his most memorable scenes. Here, the title poem from Virginia Rounding’s recent volume of English translations comes to us via an album by the film composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, which he offered up for an international short film competition earlier this year. Here’s how the website No Film School described it:
The composer behind ‘The Revenant’ has teamed up with Apichatpong Weerasethakul to give out awards totaling $5,000 cash.
This past spring, Ryuichi Sakamoto released his album async, which he described as a “soundtrack for an imaginary Andrei Tarkovsky film.” Today, he announced the async Short Film Competition, in which he asks filmmakers to create a movie around his music.
The short films will be judged by Sakamoto and acclaimed filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives). In addition, one filmmaker will be given an “Audience Award” based on the following method: One point for every time the submitted film is played on Vimeo; 10 points for every “like” on Vimeo; and 10 points for every “like” on Facebook by September 30th, 2017.
Sakamoto will decide on a winner based on the following criteria:
- Originality
- Creativity
- Unique expression of the relationship between the music and the images
- The general appeal of the film
[…]
Apichatpong will decide on a winner based on the following criteria:
- Originality
- Creativity
- The general appeal of the film
Links to all the films entered in the competition are currently on the front page of Sakamoto’s website. You can see more film interpretations of this poem by doing a Google video search for Arseny Tarkovsky “Life, Life”.
ПИЛИГРИМЫ / Pilgrims by Joseph Brodsky
Pilgrims is “a short film based on the poem of the same name by Russian-American Nobel Prize winning poet Joseph Brodsky,” performed, directed, cinematography by John Doan. Click the CC icon for subtitles in Russian, German, French, or English. The synopsis on Vimeo reads:
Poet alone with his thoughts and feeling tries to find answers to life’s greatest questions. Where is this world going? What is real and what is illusory? Where can one find salvation and peace? Will his inner pilgrimage come to an end?
In addition to his other roles, Doan was also the English translator here; the music is by Moby. Visit the Facebook page for more information on the film.
На заре – наимедленнейшая кровь / At dawn – quiet blood by Marina Tsvetaeva
A poem by the great Marina Tsvetaeva in a film directed by Natalia Alfutova. Be sure to click the CC icon for the English translation by Tony Brinkey. Anastasia Somova (Anastasia Somique) and Artem Tkachenko are the actors, Valeria Ordinartseva co-wrote the script with Alfutova, and Mikael Hamzyan was the cameraman.
Послушайте / Please listen! by Vladimir Mayakovsky
This wonderfully disturbing film by Natalia Alfutova was recognized by the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival 2016 jury as a Special Mention for the Goethe Film Prize. Be sure to click the closed captioning (CC) icon for the English translation. Here’s the description from the ZEBRA website:
The Dummy and its mirror-reflection are in the waiting room of God. They mimic the Human-talk and the God dancing.
Natalia Alfutova
was born in Moscow and studied Mathematics at the Moscow State University, movie directing at ‘Higher Director’s Courses’ Moscow,, and multimedia art at The Rodchenko Art School (Moscow). In 2014 she founded “Mediamead” art studio. Artworks of this studio are based on the mix of math, cinema and multimedia art. In last two years Natalia made a number of installations, which were shown in different Moscow Museums and art places.
Much to my own surprise, this is the first Mayakovsky poem I’ve ever shared a video for. I was sure I must’ve found others over the years, but apparently not.
navn nome name by OTTARAS
Sound poetry and concrete poetry elude most efforts at translation — except for translation into videopoetry, as in this new release from OTTARAS (Ottar Ormstad and Taras Mashtalir) and Alexander Vojjov. I’m sure knowing Norwegian would add layers of meaning but even without that, I found the visualization of names as planetary objects or one-celled organisms intriguing and delightful. Here’s the Vimeo description:
NAVN NOME NAME (2016) is based on Ottar Ormstad’s “telefonkatalogdiktet” (‘the phonebook poem’). It is his third book of concrete poetry, published in Norway by Samlaget (2006). For this language research project, Ormstad read (!) the phonebook of Oslo 2004 and selected names on a poetic basis. In the book, the names are presented visually as concrete poetry. Most of the names are strongly connected to Norwegian and describe phenomena in nature.
NAVN NOME NAME is the second work of a collection of video poems created by the Norwegian-Russian duo OTTARAS (Ottar Ormstad and Taras Mashtalir) in collaboration with Russian video artist Alexander Vojjov. In the video, Ormstad reads names selected by the Russian-American composer Mashtalir. Through this work, Norwegian language turns into international sound poetry. Ormstad’s collection of family names present in Oslo’s phonebook at the time of reading are exposed and read by the author while performing to Mashtalir’s pulsating music. Is everyone connected to each other in the sphere that is shaping before the viewer’s eyes? How do names and language relate to the atmospheric scapes Vojjov creates of numbers, geometric forms and abstract shapes?
NAVN NOME NAME exists in different versions made for screening and live performance. Raising awareness of electronic poetry and sonic ecology, attracting new audience to a potent yet to come genre is the inspiration for this collaboration.
The video is produced in HD 16:9 in color, stereo.
Duration: 06:05 mins
Animation: Alexander Vojjov
Music: Taras Mashtalir
Concrete poetry, voice & production: Ottar Ormstad
© Ottar Ormstad 2016
No Regrets ( Не жалею, не зову, не плачу…) by Sergei Yesenin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQhAR-PiaI4
A film by John Deryl, who also supplied the voiceover using the English translation by Andrey Kneller. The YouTube description includes a process note:
Usual people don’t see many things around them. This piece shows what usually happens in my mind when I walk on the street. This morning I did not plan to make a film, but I happened to take my camera with me, and it resulted in this video. So I filmed it, found the right poem and narrated, chose the right music, mixed, edited, and color graded everything in about 6 hours. And now you have a chance to be in my mind for some time.
I Loved You (Я вас любил: любовь ещё, быть может…) by Alexander Pushkin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxp2CCFaM6Q
A simple but effective video by actor John Deryl, who also does the voiceover, using Genia Gurarie’s English translation of Pushkin’s poem. (h/t: Ivan Mason, via email)
Алый апрель (Scarlet April) by Dmitry Vodennikov
Ukrainian filmmaker Anzhela (Angie) Bogachenko directed and edited this surrealist videopoem with a text by the contemporary Russian poet Dmitry Vodennikov (who is no stranger to video). That’s Vodennikov’s reading in the soundtrack, which was put together by Victor 78 — the long-haired male lead. The English translation in the subtitles is credited to Anna Shwets. (I like the way even the post-it notes are translated. And I love the post-it notes in general.) The cast includes Zoryana Tarasyuta along with Bogachenko and Victor 78. Vladimir Gusev was the cameraman. Asya was the cat.
Bogachenko also made that delightful film with the dancing cosmonauts that I posted back in October, “А у вас дім далеко від нас?” (Do you have a home away from us?).
Beyond the Seen by Yana Djin
This new poetry film by Karen Mary Berr is based on a poem by Russian-American writer Yana Djin (website, blog). In a post on her blog, Berr noted:
It has been said her poetry offers no consolation, no ‘right’ solution to the tragedy of life, but paradoxically this is precisely the only one I needed when the time came for consolation.
Yana’s voice is a true voice, with no concession, no need for gilding, no lies.
She’s not only an inimitable writer, but a beautiful woman and an irreplaceable friend.
