Poepera as a Poetry’s Interpretive Kinetic Art Onstage

Poepera as a Poetry’s Interpretive Kinetic Art Onstage

Zhang Guangkui¹

Abstract: As a kinetic interpretation onstage, poepera (poetic opera) is an experimental performance of poetry. It promotes poetry reading to a motion performance with interpretive backgrounds including necessary various forms of musical or dancing accompaniment when they are needed. This paper argues that poetry should be written not only for auditory listening, but also for visual watching, or both, which is comprehensive and multidimensional performance for understanding and appreciation. Using kinetic art theory and hermeneutic theory, the author demonstrates that a poem can be revised and adapted into a similar or general reference to opera, song, dance, micro drama, etc. with poetry recitation as mostly necessary, and some images or imagery appearing vividly onto a stage. Finally the article comes to a conclusion that poepera is interpretive kinetic poetry, which belongs to kinetic art.

Keywords: poepera; poetry performance; kinetic art

Poepera, poetic opera?

Poepera is a combination of “poetic” and “opera”. It was coined after years of our touring performances of poetry on some of college campuses in China. In recent years, more and more audience appreciated and like the new style of poetry performance since it makes poetry so vivid and alive. It makes seemingly “dead” poetry come back to life, especially for Chinese readers/audience who thought contemporary Chinese poetry is not as good as, or even much worse than ancient Chinese poetry which was composed for singing originally, for example, the poems written in Tang Dynasty of China. They think contemporary ones have and are losing the nature of “歌”(which means “song”) and of “诗 (which means ‘poetry’)歌”. Gradually students from poetry class have come to like to participate this kind of poetry performance inside class and outside touring performances, which sometimes change them (the student actors) into images or part of imagery in performing.

The fact has been accepted that “not only the works of poepera, but also the concept of poepera itself has caused impressive ripples, if not flood or deluge, in the literary circle.”(Long, 2015) So, a poepera is an interpretive recitation and performance of poetry with some necessary background/setting, music or dance, etc. onstage. It is a new genre of poetry with multidimensional artistic approaches onstage.

To answer the question in the subtitle, poepera is of a poem, not an opera, which is used as a similar general reference to opera, song, dance, micro drama, etc. with poetry recitation as mostly necessary. To be more exact, it is kinetic poetry or kinetic art. “It owes a lot to operas, but not a form of opera. It is similar to expressionist plays, but basically different from them.” (Long, 2015) In other words, it is not poetic drama which is a drama like William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Othello, King Lear or Macbeth. It is the one between “expressionist theatre” and “expressionist poetry”.

Interpretive performance

To understand is to interpret. To read is to understand. So, to read is to interpret. To read aloud poetry is to interpret poetry orally. Whether to read poetry silently, or to articulate, or to perform onstage, the understanding, auditory or visual, involves interpretation anyway.

Performance is an explanation aesthetically for audience’s understanding and appreciation. Performance needs Hans-Georg Gadamer’s “fusion of horizon”² from audience to make poepera/poetry effective. During the performing procedure, by interpretation, poepera expects and audiences are expected to reach this common area: horizon of fusion. Poepera’s success means the two sides’ compromise after negotiation between poepera and audience, especially after poepera’s concession for audience’s satisfaction and aesthetic appreciation. This horizon is not an ordinary common area, according to Gadamer:

Every finite present has its limitations. We define the concept of “situation” by saying that it represents a standpoint that limits the possibility of vision. Hence essential part of the concept of situation is the concept of “horizon.” The horizon is the range of vision that includes everything that can be seen from a particular vantage point... A person who has no horizon is a man who does not see far enough and hence overvalues what is nearest to him. On the other hand, "to have an horizon" means not being limited to what is nearby, but to being able to see beyond it...[W]orking out of the hermeneutical situation means the achievement of the right horizon of inquiry for the questions evoked by the encounter with tradition.( Gadamer, 1997)

Poepera’s audience comes from different backgrounds and they cannot completely remove themselves from their backgrounds, for example, history, culture, race, gender, language, experience, education, etc. The audience may expect to look for a way to be engaged in understanding poetry texts about different cultures, but poepera may interpret poetry based on directors’ past experience and prejudice. During the discourse articulated or performance performed, a fusion of “horizons” takes place between the poepera and audience, leading to overinterpretation and underinterpretation³, or, understanding or misunderstanding.

Meanwhile, to make more and more seemingly tedious (at least for most poetry readers) poetry come back to life, multidimensional onstage approaches are usually used to help and support the interpretation of poetry. By this, tools or approaches are unavoidably overused for the assistance of performing, which leads to the overinterpretation of Umberto Eco (1932-2016)⁴. He thinks any interpretation is over-interpretation. In spite of this, interpretive performance, i.e. poepera is going on. Audience does not care about over-interpretation or under-interpretation, what they want is to understand poetry this way or that via the performance of poepera which may be a proper method to appreciate the art of poetry. By performing, some of the images come out of “dead” poetry discourse and become alive, and the audience need not reconstruct abstract imagery in their brains.

In poepera, audience should realize that audience are not standard audience, the reciters/readers/actors are not standard ones either. Therefore, over-interpretation or under-interpretation should occur here and there because of the interpreter’s personal background, race, education, culture, experience, etc. What they should agree with after “negotiation” is “forgiveness”, “tolerance”, “general understanding” and the process of aesthetic appreciation, since poepera’s performance is a kinetic art.

Kinetic poetry, kinetic art

Dynamic poepera produces rich bone-blood-flesh interpretation and performance. The kinetic performance containing static poetry text and dynamic movement turns into kinetic poetry. Then, according to Frank Popper⁵ (1918- ), poepera is kinetic art.

Kinetic art is art from any medium that contains movement perceivable by the viewer or depends on motion for its effect. To understand kinetic poetry, how to explain “movement perceivable by the viewer” is essential. Movement means poetry performance, and audiences are the viewer. And how do the audiences of poetry perceive the “movement” of performance? Here it makes sense in two ways: 1. The motion of performance can be of course perceived if audiences are not blind; 2. Different audiences/viewers understand the poepera—kinetic art in different ways/viewpoints, which means dynamic (different) audience with different background, culture, race and experiences watch the same poepera. Canvas paintings that extend the viewer's perspective of the artwork and incorporate multidimensional movement are the earliest examples of kinetic art. (Popper, 1968) Similarly, poepera’s kinetic movement can lead the audience’s perspective into an esoteric imagination and deep understanding/appreciation. Kinetic poetry as kinetic art involves a wide variety of multiple techniques, and styles which can be a similar opera, a similar drama, a rap, etc.

In poepera, “kinetic rhythm” (Popper, 1968) also exists. Like Popper’s famous moving sculpture Kinetic Construction (nickname as Standing Wave, 1919–20)(Brett, 1968), a good poepera’s “kinetic rhythm” can be more rhythmic than static poetry text, or recitation. Here are some examples.

Case studies:

1. “Spring, the Sweet Spring”

The original poem reads as follows:

F_ROM S_UMMMER’S L_AST W_ILL

Spring, the Sweet Spring⁶

Thomas Nashe

Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king,

Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,

Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:

Cuckoo, cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The palm and may make country houses gay,

Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,

And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay:

Cuckoo, jug-jug pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,

Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,

In every street these tunes our ears do greet:

Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

Spring, the sweet Spring!

After being specially arranged and revised/adapted for poepera’s performance, the poem becomes a piece of rap with more refrains to adapt musical performing on stage with drum kit’s accompaniment the whole time and beat box’s accompaniment at intervals(“¶” is used immediately after every two beats; “—”stands for one beat):

(Beatbox solo as an introduction)

Spring—, ¶the sweet spring, ¶is the year's¶ pleasant king, ¶

Then blooms¶ each thing, ¶then maids¶ dance in a ring, ¶

Cold doth¶ not—¶sting—, ¶ the pretty birds¶ do—¶ sing—: ¶

Cuckoo, cuckoo, ¶jug-jug, ¶pu-we, pu-we ¶ to-witta-woo—! ¶

Cuckoo, cuckoo, ¶jug-jug, ¶pu-we, pu-we ¶ to-witta-woo—! ¶

                            Cuckoo—¶Cuckoo—¶      (mimicry of cuckoo by rapper)

                              Cuckoo—¶Cuckoo—¶    (mimicry chorus from a distance)

（8-beat pause for beatbox solo）

The palm and may¶ make country¶ houses gay, ¶

Lambs frisk¶ and play, ¶the shepherds pipe¶ all— ¶ day—, ¶

And we hear¶ aye birds tune¶ this merry lay: ¶

Cuckoo, cuckoo, ¶ this merry lay (read in chorus):¶

Jug-jug, ¶ this merry lay (read in chorus)¶

Pu-we, pu-we ¶ this merry lay (read in chorus)¶

To-witta-woo, to-witta-woo! ¶

This merry lay(Chorus in music)¶ this merry lay (chorus in music) ¶

                     Lay, lay! ¶ Lay, lay! ¶

                      Lay laylaylay, lay! ¶                     (chorus)

                      Merry ¶lay—! ¶

（8-beat pause for beatbox solo）

The fields breathe ¶sweet—, ¶the daisies kiss ¶our feet, ¶

Young lovers meet, ¶old wives ¶a-sunning sit,¶

In every street ¶these tunes ¶our ears ¶do— ¶greet—: ¶

Cuckoo, jug, ¶pu-we, to-witta-woo! ¶

Our ears ¶do— ¶greet—: ¶

Cuckoo, cuckoo, ¶jug-jug, ¶pu-we, to-witta-woo! ¶

                    Our ears greet, ¶our ears greet! ¶     (read in chorus)

                         Greet, greet! ¶              (read in chorus)

（8-beat pause for beatbox solo）

Spring—, ¶the sweet Spring! ¶

So— ¶sweet— ¶Spring—! ¶

                   So sweet Spring! ¶So sweet Spring! ¶      (read in chorus)

Mma—!¶

                            Hahahahaha…!          (all in chorus to finish)

(Drum kit solo as the end)

The above has not been written in a music stave (also staff) way, and so each sound’s pitch has not be marked onto the five parallel lines of stave, for the design is open for kinetic performance for different rappers/reciters (even for the same rapper/reciters) may articulate or produce different pitch or sound value for the same syllable at different time or with different mood). This is the reason why musical score should not be given or has not been given for this poem—rap music. It is designed open for kinetic poetry/art.

2. “Neosonnet 1”

First of all, the text of the poem is displayed here before further analysis for poepera:

Neosonnet 1⁷

When we are old and aged enough,

We move hand in hand, cough and cough.

When you tumble to the ground, if,

I kneel down to help you stand safe.

When I'm most weak and sick to snuff,

Your hands and eyes hold firmly mine,

Tickling our live love story-line.

When we are old, our selves can hold,

We lie to sunbathe on the sand.

You are my coffee newly ground,

I'm your bacon, butter and bread,

Crumble flicked with a finger head.

Mouth to mouth, if deaf, mouth to ear,

Then to dust hand in hand with Dear.

This fourteen-line poem of tetrameter was once designed into two styles of performance reading, one is two young actors/reciters (for example, lovers in their twenties) read the poem from young people’s understanding even with a joking way and necessary young performing behavior onstage. The other is two old ones (for example, an old couple in their fifties) perform reading with stage props like walking sticks and glasses, wearing grey wigs, walking and speaking slowly, trembling the paper of the poem, etc. The two styles of performances are performed as a whole poepera. The young style is performed as the first scene, the old one the second scene. Then the kinetic effect of a poem’s development of into a kinetic poem—poepera comes out with obviously different dynamic interpretations.

3. “Down by the Salley Gardens”

“Down by theSalleyGardens”⁸ (here the text was omitted for saving space) written by William Butler Yeats(1865-1939)can be and was designed into two scenes of poepera by repeating the poem two times. In the first scene of the poepera, the poem is read in a narrative way, telling a vivid love story. In the end, the last couplet “But I being young and foolish/With her would not agree” is repeated two times to show “narrator’s” regretting and depressing. Then the reciter gets off the stage, and the poepera develops into the second scene: a singer goes onto the stage and sings the song of “Down by the Salley Gardens” after the style of Emi Fujita (藤田恵美, 1963- ), a renowned Japanese singer.

4. “Since Edinburgh”

This poem is a short one with several words in each line, which makes it difficult to render it into a poepera, and may require the performance to be carried out in a hurry, leaving audience completely muddle-headed or confused:

SinceEdinburgh⁹

Since Edinburgh

You plunge into pool of happiness

You say Edinburgh

Is very beautiful

But you, the same as her

Since Edinburgh

That’s since loneliness

It’s God’s intrigue

Give you a bitter

Then favor you sugar

Since Edinburgh

You’ve got a watershed

This half single, this, couple

This miss, this, plural

And this empty, this, fuller,

You’ve changed

Since Edinburgh

How to turn it into a poepera “standing” for some time onstage for the audience to “chew” and “digest” is a question. After discussions and experiments, for this kind of “mini-poems” (Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” is another extreme example), these short poetic lines can be and were designed into asides to explain/interpret the main poepera which could be a dance, a music or others. “SinceEdinburgh” was adapted into a dance poepera with three periods – “loneliness”, “in love” and “marriage”, with the reciter reading—interpreting the poem aside according to the progress of dancing and music, with some change/repetition if necessary.

Future research/experiments

 Apparently, poepera has disadvantages. It cannot “carry out” all poems onto a stage, because poems are ever changing with various styles and types. On the other hand, to produce poepera needs financial support because onstage performances need more modern hi-tech as technical support for a better effect, auditory and visual.

The future poepera experiments can focus on epic and lyric poems. The essential point for the former one is to endow it with the nature of poepera with poem as its core, without turning it into a drama or poetic drama. The key and difficult point for the latter one is to keep it “lyrical” onstage. What is “lyrical” about it should be shown not only in the reciter’s reading, but also in the actors’ performance.

Research in the future should concentrate on theoretical studies. Drama/theatre and opera theories can and must be connected with poepera performance for poepera’s performativity and some of opera’s quality.

Conclusion

Poepera as an experimental performance of poetry develops poetry reading into a motion performance. It is both auditory and visual art, which is comprehensive and multidimensional performance for understanding and appreciation, and can be adapted into a similar opera, song, dance, micro drama, etc. The onstage interpretation, either from the perspective of the  “actors/reciters” or the audiences, is kinetic. Poepera is kinetic poetry and kinetic art.

References:

Long,Longinus J. Y. Poeticized Opera, or Operaticized Poem? [J]London: Verse Version, No. 3. 2015.

Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method.[M]New York: Continuum, 1997.

Popper, Frank. The Origins and Development of Kinetic Art. [M]London: 1968.

Brett,Guy.Kinetic Art: the Language of Movement.[M]London: 1968.

Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_art. 2 September 2015.

Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter and Jon Stallworthy, ed. The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 4^th Edition,New York,London:W. W. Norton & Company, 1996.

Http://user.qzone.qq.com/540734258/2. 29 September 2015.

Yeats, Williams. 《叶芝诗选》，外语教学与研究出版社，2012.