I was a river, an elephant and a worker

Live audio-visual performance
Music: Davide Paolillo
Text, video and scenography: Tijana Petrović
Musicians: Barbara Udovčić, Annija Endija Kolerta, Miguel Lopez, Yngwie Janseghers
With the support of The Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp
2023.

“I was a river, an elephant and a worker” is an audio-visual live performance following Gastarbajter’s journey from the motherland to the land of immigration, from the comfortable position to dispersion, from confidence to self-marginalization to reparation. 

The text of the piece comes from my book “Gastarbajter’s guide through poetic possibilities” which is a collection of un-poetic poems, translated interviews, and cacophonic voices that are loud, that interrupt each other and that want to be heard. 
These poems were created from conversations and interviews with migrated or seasonal workers coming to the West to work. The original language and the volume, the interruptions and pauses found their possible translation in the form of the poems and, with this project, in the form of audio-visual performance. 
Davide Paolillo created a synergy between the composed audio track and the instruments involved, connecting the digital and the analog. The instruments are used as a reminiscence of the interrupted voices and to create a conversation. The videos, text, and scenography were carefully constructed in order to create a gentle environment possible for constant re-interpretation of the meaning-making, for a negotiation of the terms under which some voices make their appearance.