The Western Front

Front Magazine Summer issue // Launch Party

In certain cases it so happens that the original work proves to be ‘unfaithful’ to its translation.—Jorge Luis Borges

On Saturday, June 5, from 8pm to 11pm come and get yourself translated, live, in ten different languages. A series of performances by Emilio Rojas and invited guests will be presented in the Western Front Grand Luxe Hall (303 E 8th Ave), with drinks and a social atmosphere.

Behind the fame of Borges the writer hides Borges the translator. Only very recently has this facet of his work been studied and analyzed. Borges dismissed the common idea of translation as an inferior form of production and suggested that a translation should be assessed not for its similarity to the original but for the way it takes advantage of new aesthetic potentials that surface in the crossing from one language to another. He finds the value of translation in its faculty to surprise us by producing new aesthetic effects, untouched in the original. By translating to Spanish the works of Woolf, Chesterton, Poe, Whitman, Hesse, Kafka, Kipling, Gide, Faulkner and many others, Borges changed the practice, giving a modern definition of what a translation is entitled to do, and the responsibility of a translator to the reader.

Beyond the traduttore traditore, the translator as traitor, A Night of Translations plays with the seduction of language and its ability to convey meaning in the form of sounds, actions and emotions. Emilio Rojas uses Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” and his translations of Borges poems as a point of departure to a larger conversation and exchange between his mother in Mexico and the audience, via Skype. A night of participatory performance, with invited guests acting as translators, that questions the ability of translation to evoke the exact correspondence between a multiplicity of languages; between the object, the word and what the word represents; between what the languages say and mean to say.

Schedule
DOORS OPEN AT 8:00

7:00-10:50 – De Woolf a Borges, De mi madre a mi... From Woolf to Borges, From my mother to me... Emilio Rojas and his mother (Sonia Esperanza Balcazar)
8:00-10:00 – Los Hacedores / The makers. Invited Guests
8:30 – Crying/Llorando. Natalie Doonan & Lupe Martinez
8:00-11:00 – The Other Words. Chuan Hua Catherine Dong.
8:45-11:00 – Recitacion de la traduccion, de la traduccion / Recitation of a Translation of a Translation. Invited guests.
10:50 – Borges y Yo / Borges und Ich/ Borges and I/ Borges e moi/ Borges e io. Emilio Rojas and invited guests.

Installations:
Los Hacedores / Dreamtigers. Vinyl in entrance hallway, with performances by invited guests.
El otro, el mismo / The other, the same. Sound piece in entrance hallway. Sylvain Daval and Emilio Rojas

Invited guests: Lupe Martinez, Natalie Doonan, Francisco Fernando Granados, Manolo Lugo, Wilhem Smith, Chris Blomke, Elfred Matening, Patrick Cruz, Cholo Ancheta, Francis Cruz, Tahina Awan, Am Johal, Jorge Amigo, Patrizia Giovanna, Omar Elka, Joji Fukushima, Makiko Hara, Amanda Huynh, Chun Hua Dong, and more…

If you speak any other language and wish to participate as an invited guest please send an email to millo.reds17@gmail.com for more details and information.

Karaoke Is the Universal Language – Afterparty
The night of June 5 will conclude with a karaoke party at an undisclosed location. Join us, 11:30 to late, to promote cross-cultural understanding through song & drink. Various languages will be available. Follow www.twitter.com/frontmagazine for details, or find us on Facebook.

Front Magazine Summer 2010 – Playalisticwestcoastverbalassassinatorz

See the Front Magazine page for details on our Summer issue.