Foreign Stories Migrant Stories an inquiry into the

Foreign Stories / Migrant Stories an inquiry into the translatability of Latin American narratives for the stage in the UK Mary Ann Vargas, Translation Acts Ph. D Student Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies at King’s College London Foreign Stories Migrant Stories foreign /ˈfɒrɪn /adjective of, from, in, or characteristic of a country or language other than one's own synonyms: overseas, distant, remote, far off, far flung, external, outside strange and unfamiliar synonyms: unfamiliar, unknown, unheard of, strange, alien, exotic, outlandish, odd, peculiar, curious, bizarre, weird, queer, funny Origin Middle English foren, forein, from Old French forein, forain, based on Latin foras, foris ‘outside’, from fores ‘door’ Foreign Stories will address the following questions: • Can translation resist cultural dominance? • What is the ethical responsibility inherent in telling the stories of others? • How can our choices as practitioners bridge the gap between source and target cultures to affect audiences’ response? • Could theories of hybrid-authorship and co-creative dramaturgy be applied to enhance our practice as translators, scholars and theatre makers? • Could addressing these questions be instrumental in devising new methodologies? Space as practiced place I believe it is more so my duty to create, and facilitate the uniquely human pleasure of encountering another person in the touching of worlds. – Lucy Rose Coren, Canadian dramaturge Stories happen in time by relating to movements in space. This research strand will expand on Michel de Certeau’s conceptualisations of space (physical environment) and place (human interactions and how they’re perceived): space as practiced place, in the light of Emma Cox’s more recent investigations in Theatre & Migration. As Cox points out, theatre of migration pays attention to imagining the contact zones between those who arrive and those who claim ownership or custodianship over a territory. But who does the imagining? Migrant Stories will address this pivotal question using ethnography as the main, practice-based participatory methodological approach. The aim is to assemble stories in collaboration with London’s Latin American community, especially with the traders and local people living and working around the Elephant and Castle shopping centre. This corpus will then become the starting point towards creating a repertoire of new performance pieces to be archived and shared in local South London venues such as the Southwark Playhouse, a keen collaborator so far. Participatory methodologies include: • As Sarah Maitland suggests, has translation become a metaphor for thoughtful encounter and a touchstone act for what we can see, do and say, and who we are? Corpus of performance pieces, translated by myself: The Captive • Simple questionnaires, both in Spanish and English, to gather information about participants' individual experiences of migration to the UK. • Triangulation techniques: using maps and mapping as pedagogical resources for people's involvement in the observation and reimagining of their local environment. (La Cautiva, Lima 2013), by Luis Alberto Leo n Bacigalupo Over fifteen thousand people are still missing in Peru as a result of the country’s armed conflict (1980 -2000). The Captive attempts to reclaim the body of the disappeared by re-enacting the circumstances of one Andean girl’s death with the audience as witness. Perhaps the most challenging aspect of translating The Captive for performance in the UK is to embrace the inherent bilinguality of the source text. Although written in Spanish, The Captive’s protagonist, Maria Josefa, and her family are bilingual: they speak Quechua and Spanish. In Leo n’s meticulous choice of syntax, Quechua’s pulse, sonority and rhythms are contained within the official language of Peru. This is particularly striking when the girl speaks. The resulting tension is further accentuated by our knowledge that Maria Josefa is dead and her desire to live again will only gain resilience and a forward momentum with the audience’s complicity. In a sense, one could argue the process of foreignisation in The Captive began inadvertently, even before the text was translated, spurred by León’s intention to write this piece, decades after the conflict it summons, for audiences beyond the imaginary Peru he refers to in the text. The Language of Mermaids (El lenguaje de las Sirenas, Lima 2012), by Mariana de Althaus The Pacific Ocean is in turmoil due to extreme weather conditions. The Language of Mermaids explores the interaction between a mermaid, left stranded on the beach, and a family stubbornly defying an impending tsunami. Set in a dystopian future, which feels very much of our time, this piece is a striking re-imagining of the resulting violence that takes place when society turns a blind eye to climate change and otherness. The piece is also a bold attempt to embody an allegory in performance through the story of a fantastical creature that seeks refuge from the waves but instead, finds itself being rejected, abused and objectified. The mermaidʼs sudden apparition becomes all the more poignant when we learn that she speaks in Quechua, a language the family doesn’t understand. Imagined Cartographies When a text for performance is translated, it travels from the source language to a new environment (target language, mise en scène, target audience), one where the text itself becomes only one of the many players reinventing an imagined world. As Sarah Maitland suggests, Maps, as with translations, are social constructs that serve as technologies of control in which power is exercised precisely through the judicious 'delineation and demarcation' not just of territories but of the lived experience they represent. But what happens when this power is suspended or reversed in the act of mapping? Maps can also be used as a resource to establish a dialogue between, the issues it projects and (. . . ) the elaboration of individual and collective understandings of the predicaments it may advocate. In line with Giovanna Monteiro's research, I will be looking at the role of mapping in terms of, not only the analysis of the production and reproduction of space but also […] to outline the meanings of the act of mapping to individuals and collectivities. References; Benjamin, Walter. 1999. The Arcades Project. Trans. H. Eiland K. Mc. Laughlin. Cambridge MA: The Belknap Press. Certeau, Michel de. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cox, Emma and Peter Sellars. 2014. Theatre and Migration. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Geertz, Clifford. 1973. Thick Description: Towards and Interpretative Theory of Culture. In Clifford Geertz. The Interpretation of Cultures. London: Hutchinson. Maitland, Sarah. 2017. What is Cultural Translation? London: Bloomsbury. Monteiro, Giovana. 2018. Ph. D thesis, The role of mapping in the critical engagement of dwellers with the built environment: a study from the case of an informal settlement in downtown Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. London: Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Román-Velásquez, Patria. 1999. The Making of Latin London: Salsa music, place and identity. Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Ltd. Venuti, Lawrence. 2017. The Translator’s Invisibility: a History of Translation. London: Routledge. Venuti, Lawrence. 2013. Translation changes everything: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Background art by Wendy Torres Cadena