Mary Helen Porter

The idea of the Tower of Babel has always fascinated me, but even more so after coming to Interlochen Arts Academy. Some of my closest friends speak languages that I may never understand, but as I became closer to them I realized that communication could occur via empathy versus language. One night, actually, I sat down at dinner with two friends who were speaking in their native language, Spanish. As I sat down I thought I knew what they were communicating, but I did not understand what they were

actually saying. In my silly logic I figured that I had forgotten how to speak English entirely and had a slight panic attack. Instead, they were simply communicating in Spanish.

One of my favorite movies, “Funny Face,” made in the late 50s with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn, was another main inspiration for my annual project this year because of the major theme of empathy in the film. There's this clip where the main character, Jo, an intellectual from New York City spends an evening speaking with men in a Parisan performance arts theatre meets bar. Jo does not speak French and the men do not speak Enight, yet somehow Jo thinks they are able to surpass their language barrier and communicate. At this moment Jo's almost-lover, Dick, shows up and with a bottle of wine proves that the men's oohs and ahhs are merely a tactic to scam Jo. While this scene may as well have discouraged my intreast in loop holes within language barriers, what happens next between all the characters is truly exciting. They all overcame significant differences to interact and emapthize with one another. (I won't tell you what exactly happen - I'm no spoiler.)

So, after having my own personal experience that Jo may or may not have had as well, I decided to investigate the blurry lines of communication through art. I took poems written in Italian, French, and German and attempted to empathize with them. I sat for hours reading the poems I could not pronounce, listening to audio recordings of people reciting them, and without knowing the poem’s translations, I wrote poems that were in conversation with the foreign poems. After responding to all the foreign poems I translated them to see if my crazy idea worked, and it did! If you want to see how each poem specifically became models of emapthy click

 to read my reflections.

After working with words and finding great results, I decided to further explore my concept in music, dance, and sheer collaboration. I took my words to Jose Salinas, a fellow student and friend, who has his own experiences with language barriers. Salinas took my words and composed a stringed piece that first respembled the feeling of natural communication. I call it natural communication because even within perfect circumstances humans still miscommunicate frequently, but are still able to overcome these miscommunications. Then, he composed a fugue which truly has an echo effect that clouds a listener's mind with beautiful confusion.

With my dancers, Derek Brockington and Johari Taitt, I wanted to not only further what I did with poetry and what Salinas did with music, but also experiment with sign language and body language. We started with just walking - one of the first things we learn as humans while also learning how to make words. We then moved on to variations that symbolize speaking and hearing. As the variations complicated, the two dancers fell out of sync. Good communication (whatever that may mean) truly comes and goes in waves, and we tried to echo that in the movement as well as in the music. 

About half way in the process collaboration became frustrating and I started asking myself, "Well, if communication is so damn hard why do we even try?". As many artists may know, collaboration and just making art in general can be a frustrating process. But, when I answered my own question I knew it was worth while. 

What was my answer? Well simply, "I am humanity."