A Complicated Version of Freedom : Gloss

A Complicated Version of Freedom

Diego Cristian Saldaña
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Analyzing language as a sounding performance, we find that writing systems encode bodies in ways that both broaden the possibilities of performance and establish limitations. Each human language narrows the infinite range of vocal performance to a set repertoire of articulations in order to create an operable code. This paradox haunts performance as a space for freedom and a continuous call to socialization: There’s no single human language that makes use of every possible sound of the mouth—Spanish lacks the “sh” sound, English lacks the “ñ” sound—but this limitation creates a frame which makes possible symbolic relations for meaning building (house, household, housing).

A complicated version of freedom explores the potentiality of different languages—not for what they mean but for how they sound. How might a theatre piece take advantage of four different languages conceived as musical instruments, each one with its own unique potential?

A complicated version of freedom attempts to compose such a utopic piece. Analyzing different mappings of the sounds in Mandarin, Korean, Farsi, and Spanish, I arranged a composition that releases slow transformations that incrementally unravel different compositional games as a minimalistic vocal piece. After the phonetic aspect of the composition was realized, I asked the performers/native speakers to transcribe the work using their own writing systems. This led to a unique score written in eight hands: an impossible script for a single author. It is imperative to show its handwritten quality to fully convey the richness of such a collective labor. 

Between these spoken landscapes appear some discourses written by each performer in their own native language about what is it to be free in New York and what is it to be free back in their respective hometowns. A second performer imitates the initial speech in their own language, finding words that phonetically resemble the source but which unleash a completely different and unexpected new meaning. 

A complicated version of freedom is a theatre piece that pays homage to the best of New York City: its multiculturalism. To be together is to invoke a potentiality that we neglect by separating our communities. It might be complicated, but it is nurturing and fun. A complicated version of freedom is one possible way to play together in a global world without disregarding the singularity of our cultures that enrich us as humans.

About the Author
Diego Cristian Saldaña

Diego Cristian Saldaña is a musician and writer from Mexico City. He has an MA in Performance Studies from NYU and a BA in Dramatic Literature and Theater from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). His pieces have been performed at Playwrights Week, National Theater Showcase (MNT), and National Arts Encounter (ENARTES). He has recorded three albums with Bifurcata and Sí Nena No. In 2010 he created the literary web project “soundtrack invisible,” which was performed as a live concert at Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC). In 2016 his piece Dissenssus was selected to close the V Latin-American Poetry Festival in NYC, it was later published by Interim Magazine of Poetry and Poetics, nominated as best piece of 2018, and selected for Museo ExTeresa Arte Actual’s “Modos de oir” exhibition. He is the director of Compañía CroMagnon whose video “The Subject Object” was selected for the 2017 NEXT Festival in Torino. He is currently performing the theater piece Musth, by CroMagnon, in Mexico City’s theatres.