Live performance has a unique magic: that of bridging the distances and bringing together spectators a9> audience members from all walks of life around asingle emotion shared. Whether it be at the venue ofa major festival abroad or at a summer campsite welcoming holidaymakers who have come from all over Europe, the street becomes a space for everyone.
However, one crucial question arises for every street performer on tour: how to build a connection and make themselves understood by everyone when the public doesn’t speak the same language?
Mime or Speech: Two Perspectives on Street Performance
To export a creation abroad, the most common approach is to opt for a silent approach: relying exclusively on the visual, gestures, mime or music. This is an approach that is effective, but it lacks a powerful lever.
For my part, I enjoy the dialogue. Speech is an integral part of my stage dynamics and of the interactivity with the audience. Rather than to give up on the script, I made the opposite choice:
adapt my show to the language of my audience.
Speaking Your Audience’s Language: An Effort That Is Always Welcomed
To perform a street show abroad or in front of a multicultural audience requires a genuine process of adaptation. Although one does not have a command of a language with fluency, the fact that one makes an effort to learn it and translate the text —just as I have been able to do in English, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese— radically changes the experience of the performance.
This work of translation and interpreting brings benefits immediately on the ground:
A mutual respect and greater dignity: Making the effort to speak the local language shows to the public that you haven’t come just to go through a mechanical routine, but that we are performing for them, in their own environment.
A greater sense of empathy : The emphasis, the effort or even the slight hesitations in speech create a sense of camaraderie immediately and a great deal of kindness within the circle.
A smooth conveyance of emotions: Whether it’s about adding a touch of humour, to set the pace of a build-up in intensity or to set the stage for a powerful finale, speech enables precise guidance of the audience’s attention of the spectators.
The Fire Show: A Universal Visual Language
Words enable us to forge the bond, but it is the visual that seals the sense of wonder. In a fire show, the flame, the technical virtuosity and the pyrotechnics speak a language that everyone in the world understands instantly.
By combining this visual universal scope with a sincere effort at oral communication, the performance takes on a different dimension. It is no longer simply a matter of merely entertaining some passers-by, but to orchestrate a genuine moment of intercultural sharing.
Une Flexibilité Clé pour les Festivals et Événements
For the organisers and programmers of street arts festivals, knowing that an artist adapts to the languages of their audience is a major guarantee. This is the assurance of an interactive show that leaves no spectator on the sidelines, whatever whatever its its nationality.
From the heart of European festivals to summer parties around the world, the street remains the finest playground for taking the performing arts on a journey and bringing together different cultures.