Poetry in motion, literally
Verbobala creates a political spectacle in verse and multimedia performance art
INTERVIEW. Expect a collision of genres when video installation and performance art group Verbobala lands in Boston this weekend. The concept of borders, between art forms and countries, is well known to the bilingual performance artists based in both Cuernavaca, Mexico and Tucson, Arizona. Their work is a mash-up remix of poetry, music and video. Metro spoke with poet Logan Phillips.
Do you consider your focus to be poetry? Performance art? Music? Video?
I think our focus is creating spectacle, using all of the above. We mix bilingual poetry and video projections to create experimental performances which frequently focus on identity and borders.
When you say “borders,” do you mean both literally and metaphorically, or artistically in your work?
This is a good question. Artistic genres are like international borders ... To some extent they’ve always existed and always will exist, as they serve very specific interests. We like to play with the tension held in those lines, but we don’t let them limit us. It’s too easy to see borders or genres as literal things, as laws of nature.
How important a role does the political aspect of building fences around our country play in your art?
I don’t think that people in the U.S. have really thought this through, this message that is being sent to the rest of the world by constructing a metal wall. The damage to the country’s reputation on the international scene is pretty huge ... it makes one wonder how long the U.S. can call itself “home of the free,” while we have the largest per capita prison population of any industrialized nation, a metal wall on our borders, etc. ... The U.S. has entered into a dangerous period of cultural isolation, and this is something that can be seen in nearly all modern art projects, not just our own. We’re not keeping the world out by constructing a wall around our country. We’re keeping ourselves locked in.
Do contemporary audiences need something more to capture their attention to enhance listening to poetry?
Poetry doesn’t need anything to enhance it, and people are much more receptive to it than they think they will be. Our brains are hard-wired to listen to a good story told convincingly. The oral tradition is as old as we are. But I do see where you’re going with the question. Sometimes we think of it like a band: there are people who go to solo guitar, or poetry, performances, but more people come out when it’s an entire band playing.
Verbobala
Saturday, 11:55 p.m.
The Coolidge Corner Theatre
290 Harvard St., Brookline
MBTA: Green B Line to Harvard Street
$10, 617-734-2501
www.coolidge.org