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NARRATIVE
COUNTER NARRATIVE
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Counter-Narrative
Straight after the first time we met, you sat in a cafe and cried out loud, so loud that you even scared the woman behind the bar. That was appalling… And the only thing I asked you was to teach me how to dance.
So here is the thing, this is not about you. You are here to teach me how to dance.
You are going to come to me, and I will look to the other side.
You are going to grab my attention but I will be entertained by my finger.
You are going to play some music and I will walk away.
You are going to come to me, and speak… inviting me to come back and I will put my hands on my ears, because it will be too loud to bear…
And hey, maybe dance is not my thing! Big disappointment, I know! But… maybe it will be my thing, who knows, you can’t give up on me just now or you will just be another statistic, another person who has given up on me. And you don’t want that, you want to be the one that came to me and said girl get your shit together we are going to dance. This is about me and you, it is personal, “life”, the art of encounters…
I am just here to dance, and maybe your ideas of dance will have to change, because I am just a little girl that wants to have go at dancing.
Remember when you least expect it, I might dance for you.
My name is Illa, it's my autism not yours, yeah, I will disrupt you, your little life of complex issues.
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1
your position
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Straight after the first time we met, you sat in a cafe and cried out loud, so loud that you even scared the woman behind the bar. That was appalling… And the only thing I asked you was to teach me how to dance.
So here is the thing, this is not about you. You are here to teach me how to dance.
You are going to come to me, and I will look to the other side.
You are going to grab my attention but I will be entertained by my finger.
You are going to play some music and I will walk away.
You are going to come to me, and speak… inviting me to come back and I will put my hands on my ears, because it will be too loud to bear…
And hey, maybe dance is not my thing! Big disappointment, I know! But… maybe it will be my thing, who knows, you can’t give up on me just now or you will just be another statistic, another person who has given up on me. And you don’t want that, you want to be the one that came to me and said girl get your shit together we are going to dance. This is about me and you, it is personal, “life”, the art of encounters…
I am just here to dance, and maybe your ideas of dance will have to change, because I am just a little girl that wants to have go at dancing.
Remember when you least expect it, I might dance for you.
My name is Illa, it's my autism not yours, yeah, I will disrupt you, your little life of complex issues.
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Narrative
1
What do you want to listen to?
Facts
No Facts
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Facts
Genuinely as tough as stone.
She grew up during a very difficult time in Northern Ireland called “The Troubles”
pregnant at the young age of 18,
and forced out of her home because of shame
Irish woman
her 19 year old boyfriend was tragically killed
my brother was born blue and silent
With a cord around his neck.
Irish teens
She lived in a tiny flat with the baby - alone.
He used to walk across the road every morning
he’d often smile at her
Then the smile grew to a wave.
One day he landed at her door to ask to have dinner
this… was the man she’d marry
Irish families.
Their house was caught up in a bomb in Markethill in 1997
Every door was blown off its hinges,
every window was smashed.
The only thing that survived was a porcelain clock
Irish borders.
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next chapter
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1
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No Facts
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8:16
The only things I noticed were the muscles thrusting out of his T-shirt, but only because it was extremely cold and I was dressed like a penguin. I asked for oat milk, and he said they had it… So he prepared me an oat latte, half a cup. I could have flirted with him, but it was too early, and he had this kind of heterosexual look, the kind that disturbs you. The kind of presence with the power to make you feel small, or with no right to be there, but is sexy at the same time, so you feel extremely attracted. Especially when he poured the milk and said in an eastern European accent, is it enough? Sexy and gentle…
I grabbed my coffee, and turned around, unexpressive, turning my back to him. As I was counting my sweetener, I heard a laugh. An out loud laugh. 8:16am and he was laughing. I looked back, and he had his phone in his hand, laughing, looking directly at it. What the hell?! What was he laughing at, at 8.16 in the morning? What could have been that funny? He must be earning a shit-lot of money working in that place, because he was standing there, laughing. Brexit might fuck all his rights to be in this country and he was laughing? I mean, really laughing? I don't even remember when I laughed like that ever. He might live in a shit hole, with no money for a night out at a West End show, or to sit in a posh-posh restaurant… does he even fucking know what a holiday is? Life is tough. Or you can enclose yourself in your middle class bubble and forget your privileges. You forget it is a privilege to be able to laugh, otherwise you don't laugh… you just don’t…
There is a march on Saturday. I bet he is not going, because he cannot afford to stay one day without working, otherwise he won't be paid. That is reality. Only a middle-class person can protest, but he will stay there, behind the counter, serving coffee and laughing when the biggest decision of this country could dramatically affect his life… but he's too busy to care.
Is he laughing about Mrs May? About the MPs? About me and my stupid bullshit life? Is he laughing about the bank overcharging him on his overdraft? Is he laughing at the Arts Council and its politically incorrect lottery-funded art?
How the fuck can he laugh?!!! Disrupting the early commute.
When I left that cafe, I was walking to the platform thinking. I wanted to cry, because I want to laugh like he does. His laugh was like a train passing over me.
I am dry, bitter, too much of a pessimist to laugh. I don't believe in anything. I am scared about the direction this whole world is taking, I'm too angry to laugh. I didn’t know that it’s possible.
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1
What do you want to listen to?
breakthrough
decline
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Breakthrough
I once had to speak a line when I performed Timon of Athens at the Globe theatre in London. “It is so”. Proper Shakespeare. But it was cut.
Basically, because I couldn’t speak. The director decided to cut my very long line to: “It is”. Heart breaking, I know… This was apparently more understandable with a foreign accent like mine. I could speak and generate sounds from my mouth, but not the right ones. Shakespeare would turn in his grave. And who wants to embarrass Shakespeare, right?
I was a tiny little fish, navigating in one of the biggest production companies in the UK. Coming from Brazil and having lines?! “t is, it is, it is”, show after show… and smiling… I know that sounds like a joke. But the best joke is, like any good joke which masks the truth, was when I sat for a lunch with the Director one day during the rehearsals.
She told me she went to see another production of Shakespeare. Made by a Brazilian company that was visiting UK. As she was speaking, there was a quick exhale, like when someone can’t bear a fact, and instead to speak uses compressed air… hhhhh… because the Brazilian actors were speaking in English. She carries on speaking to me in a complicit tone, as if I would sympathise with her pain. For her, the idea of a foreigner speaking English with an accent, a different musicality, a twist on Shakespeare would hurt not only her ears, but would make it unintelligible. Well she didn’t use these exact words, but that was what she implied. It was not only the fact they spoke using the wrong grammar, it was Shakespeare, for god sake, and an English translation. But the profanity of the disruption and corruption of the musicality of the real language was very distressing to her. Whatever real is for her, it distracted her from actually enjoying the performance. And, I clearly would sympathise with her pain, her asking for my complicity to be xenophobic. Listen, I am more like them than I am one of you!
Well, I nodded. I also used my passive aggressive smile. A smile with a nod feels quite compelling in those situations. And quite understanding of her drama. And trust me, for her to listen to anything she couldn’t call English was too much to bear. Well, I nodded. I also used my passive aggressive smile…
Some arts are liberal. Some arts try to keep people in place. Now I have a deeper understanding of Shakespeare when he said, “the rest is silence….”
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your position
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Decline
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I once had to speak a line when I performed Timon of Athens at the Globe theatre in London. “It is so”. Proper Shakespeare. But it was cut.
Basically, because I couldn’t speak. The director decided to cut my very long line to: “It is”. Heart breaking, I know… This was apparently more understandable with a foreign accent like mine. I could speak and generate sounds from my mouth, but not the right ones. Shakespeare would turn in his grave. And who wants to embarrass Shakespeare, right?
I was a tiny little fish, navigating in one of the biggest production companies in the UK. Coming from Brazil and having lines?! “t is, it is, it is”, show after show… and smiling… I know that sounds like a joke. But the best joke is, like any good joke which masks the truth, was when I sat for a lunch with the Director one day during the rehearsals.
She told me she went to see another production of Shakespeare. Made by a Brazilian company that was visiting UK. As she was speaking, there was a quick exhale, like when someone can’t bear a fact, and instead to speak uses compressed air… hhhhh… because the Brazilian actors were speaking in English. She carries on speaking to me in a complicit tone, as if I would sympathise with her pain. For her, the idea of a foreigner speaking English with an accent, a different musicality, a twist on Shakespeare would hurt not only her ears, but would make it unintelligible. Well she didn’t use these exact words, but that was what she implied. It was not only the fact they spoke using the wrong grammar, it was Shakespeare, for god sake, and an English translation. But the profanity of the disruption and corruption of the musicality of the real language was very distressing to her. Whatever real is for her, it distracted her from actually enjoying the performance. And, I clearly would sympathise with her pain, her asking for my complicity to be xenophobic. Listen, I am more like them than I am one of you!
Well, I nodded. I also used my passive aggressive smile. A smile with a nod feels quite compelling in those situations. And quite understanding of her drama. And trust me, for her to listen to anything she couldn’t call English was too much to bear. Well, I nodded. I also used my passive aggressive smile…
Some arts are liberal. Some arts try to keep people in place. Now I have a deeper understanding of Shakespeare when he said, “the rest is silence….”
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What do you want to listen to?
Rational
Emotional
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your position
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Rational
What do you see?…
Um?! Whatever comes to your mind… say it….
What is the story?
What was the first thing that came to your mind?
What is in front of you? Like for example, who are these people? Where are they coming from, where are they are going to? What is the story?
Who is the most beautiful? Who would you take to dinner?
Which of those two people is proud of their working-class roots?
Who voted to leave? Who truly believes in Theresa May?
Who thinks Angelina is very sexy but would take Brad Pitt to bed instead?
Who cried last week?
Which of those two people is really good at football?
Which of those people has a boyfriend, but also has had sexual encounters with a woman before?
Which of those people farts and burps quite a lot?
Which of those two people Is a Christian and believes God is pure and perfect?
who… always found friends who believe the same things…
who started to act tough, by play fighting… because they always wanted a male son.
Who has stolen money from the till, but only because it fits her moral code?
Who is …bisexual?
Who is … an immigrant?
Which of those two people is Brazilian and proud?
Who can cry and laugh in the same hour with their whole heart?
Which of those two people finds it hard to forgive and forget?
Who is arrogant, big headed, a bitch, a slut, self obsessed?
…and sucks her thumb?!
Who cries at the X factor?
Who has had a crush on Selena Gomez since the age of 12?
Who has drunk alcohol every night to get to sleep for over 2 months?
Who hears voices in her head when hoovering the house or blow dries hair?
Who lies a lot and can't control the lies… they just spill out?
Who needs confrontation?
Ok now change your position… Go and look from the other side… you have 3 seconds… is it the same story?
Go, move… is it? Is it the same story?
Can you see their eyes? What can you see?
Who is the main character? Change the side? Is it still the same character? What has changed?
So what you are telling me is that where you stand can change the story you see?
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your position
should be here
Emotional
next chapter
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What do you see?…
Um?! Whatever comes to your mind… say it….
What is the story?
What was the first thing that came to your mind?
What is in front of you? Like for example, who are these people? Where are they coming from, where are they are going to? What is the story?
Who is the most beautiful? Who would you take to dinner?
Which of those two people is proud of their working-class roots?
Who voted to leave? Who truly believes in Theresa May?
Who thinks Angelina is very sexy but would take Brad Pitt to bed instead?
Who cried last week?
Which of those two people is really good at football?
Which of those people has a boyfriend, but also has had sexual encounters with a woman before?
Which of those people farts and burps quite a lot?
Which of those two people Is a Christian and believes God is pure and perfect?
who… always found friends who believe the same things…
who started to act tough, by play fighting… because they always wanted a male son.
Who has stolen money from the till, but only because it fits her moral code?
Who is …bisexual?
Who is … an immigrant?
Which of those two people is Brazilian and proud?
Who can cry and laugh in the same hour with their whole heart?
Which of those two people finds it hard to forgive and forget?
Who is arrogant, big headed, a bitch, a slut, self obsessed?
…and sucks her thumb?!
Who cries at the X factor?
Who has had a crush on Selena Gomez since the age of 12?
Who has drunk alcohol every night to get to sleep for over 2 months?
Who hears voices in her head when hoovering the house or blow dries hair?
Who lies a lot and can't control the lies… they just spill out?
Who needs confrontation?
Ok now change your position… Go and look from the other side… you have 3 seconds… is it the same story?
Go, move… is it? Is it the same story?
Can you see their eyes? What can you see?
Who is the main character? Change the side? Is it still the same character? What has changed?
So what you are telling me is that where you stand can change the story you see?
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What do you want to listen to?
Sacred
Profane
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your position
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Sacred
Against the backdrop of national slang based on the intolerance of the different, the other, I recall a delightful tale by Aguinaldo Silva, in which a twink, in her first outing, very curious and naive, decided to pay a visit to the Cinema Iris - a popular gay cruising paradise in Rio de Janeiro - to check the existence of a certain phrase written on the walls of a bathroom cubicle.
Plunging like Dante into hell, the queen stood, tapping the walls in the cinema's darkness, while prostitutes, buggers, fairies, dopers and junkies watched the movie, and men squeezed into the corners or behind rotten curtains, moaning and engaging in erotic interchanges.
Inside the bathroom, the smoke of the cigarettes and the dim light reveal thirty men in a climate of macabre eroticism which is intensified by the stink of old urine. Making her way through the howling males and sighing tones, the debutante queen finally comes across the revealing phrase written in giant characters on the wall of a dilapidated toilet cubicle: Cinema Iris is also Brazil.
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your position
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Profane
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This is Sabina’s case. Even in understanding that all of the Orixas of the sacred mythological plot coexist in her being, her case leaves no room for doubt.
The Gods, experienced as external forces, impose their will on her personality and all instances of Sabina’s life.
But, from the moment she accepts to manifest Oxum, she becomes the goddess, the great benevolent Mother, who is known by imposing herself through a smiling softness.
Sabina conveys the impression of total integration between the mythical model and the individual personality.
When Oxum manifests herself, Sabina becomes even more gracious, even gentler, even more maternal.
When others see her, they shout, convinced:
“Ora iê iê ô!
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1
What do you want to listen to?
return
fall
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your position
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Return
The heat is sometimes unbearable in this tin can. We are all there fighting against the idea of existing or dying. Suits, city types, assholes of all kinds take over the carriage, trendy pretentious Londoners playing a role that I spit on. I should not be allowed to leave home before 10 am.
However for a second, we looked up. I did first actually. She raised her eyes a second later. But the moment our eyes met, it was just the two of us there. Everyone else disappeared, drowning in their little pocket machines of hope and pleasure. We were a good distance apart, by a few rows in the carriage. I could see only her eyes over the tops of the seats. She had black hair, and calm forehead. We were like ghosts or survivors, ghost survivors.
But maybe the ghosts were them, those fuckers who couldn’t or wouldn't notice that two strangers had broken the screen attention time. They were not aware of our presence. We could have stood up and danced, or winked to each other, got naked and wanked on their faces and no one would dare to notice a drop of sperm. There are big monsters competing with their attention. We are just two small fish and cannot make a revolution. It doesn’t matter, the matter of my dark skin, the sin of being from south of the Equator that I brought with me. Nothing matters, we are just ignoring each other.
We sell our attention to the algorithm; we are paying to be told what to see. In that moment, it felt like we were wrong. We were dysfunctional; we were outsiders separated by a few rows. We had nowhere and nothing to look at. Meaningless eyes.
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your position
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Fall
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We had seen each other the night before in the west 2nd floor common room and briefly spoke about lord of the rings…
It was extremely awkward… we didn’t have a conversation.
We were both forced to go to this party with friends because we couldn’t think of a good enough excuse not to go. Fetich Friday.
I ended up having to talk to him…
…mainly about music and animation
Even when dancing we were still talking.
…mainly about music and animation
so I suggested to Aidan we go and get Dominos instead,
we actually talked for 6 more hours straight,
…mainly about music and animation
until I left his room at about 6am
This exact thing happened again on the second night
…mainly about music and animation
And we became a couple.
I’ve always wanted to change everything about myself
I’ve always sort of been a lone wolf.
… Because I thought it was just easier.
After I met Aidan I realised
It is easy to wake up in the morning.
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What do you want to listen to?
revelation
catastrophe
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press on the wave when the performers start to move
your position
should be here
Genuinely as tough as stone.
She grew up during a very difficult time in Northern Ireland called “The Troubles”
pregnant at the young age of 18,
and forced out of her home because of shame
Irish woman
her 19 year old boyfriend was tragically killed
my brother was born blue and silent
With a cord around his neck.
Irish teens
She lived in a tiny flat with the baby - alone.
He used to walk across the road every morning
he’d often smile at her
Then the smile grew to a wave.
One day he landed at her door to ask to have dinner
this… was the man she’d marry
Irish families.
Their house was caught up in a bomb in Markethill in 1997
Every door was blown off its hinges,
every window was smashed.
The only thing that survived was a porcelain clock
Irish borders.
read instead
next chapter
Audio Layer
Revelation
your position
should be here
Catastrophe
next chapter
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8:16
The only things I noticed were the muscles thrusting out of his T-shirt, but only because it was extremely cold and I was dressed like a penguin. I asked for oat milk, and he said they had it… So he prepared me an oat latte, half a cup. I could have flirted with him, but it was too early, and he had this kind of heterosexual look, the kind that disturbs you. The kind of presence with the power to make you feel small, or with no right to be there, but is sexy at the same time, so you feel extremely attracted. Especially when he poured the milk and said in an eastern European accent, is it enough? Sexy and gentle…
I grabbed my coffee, and turned around, unexpressive, turning my back to him. As I was counting my sweetener, I heard a laugh. An out loud laugh. 8:16am and he was laughing. I looked back, and he had his phone in his hand, laughing, looking directly at it. What the hell?! What was he laughing at, at 8.16 in the morning? What could have been that funny? He must be earning a shit-lot of money working in that place, because he was standing there, laughing. Brexit might fuck all his rights to be in this country and he was laughing? I mean, really laughing? I don't even remember when I laughed like that ever. He might live in a shit hole, with no money for a night out at a West End show, or to sit in a posh-posh restaurant… does he even fucking know what a holiday is? Life is tough. Or you can enclose yourself in your middle class bubble and forget your privileges. You forget it is a privilege to be able to laugh, otherwise you don't laugh… you just don’t…
There is a march on Saturday. I bet he is not going, because he cannot afford to stay one day without working, otherwise he won't be paid. That is reality. Only a middle-class person can protest, but he will stay there, behind the counter, serving coffee and laughing when the biggest decision of this country could dramatically affect his life… but he's too busy to care.
Is he laughing about Mrs May? About the MPs? About me and my stupid bullshit life? Is he laughing about the bank overcharging him on his overdraft? Is he laughing at the Arts Council and its politically incorrect lottery-funded art?
How the fuck can he laugh?!!! Disrupting the early commute.
When I left that cafe, I was walking to the platform thinking. I wanted to cry, because I want to laugh like he does. His laugh was like a train passing over me.
I am dry, bitter, too much of a pessimist to laugh. I don't believe in anything. I am scared about the direction this whole world is taking, I'm too angry to laugh. I didn’t know that it’s possible.
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Disruptive Narratives
Conception Vinicius Salles
Performers Valerie Ebowa & Vinicius Salles
Graffiti Artist Dev
Fictional and non-fictional fragments by:
Vinicius Salles (Illa; Laugh; It is so; What do you see; and Trash tin;
João Silvério Trevisan (Cinema Iris)
Monique Augrau (Sabina)
Fernando Pessoa (No meaning)
Caetano Veloso (lingua and You don't know me)
Willian Shakespeare (Immigrants)
Some texts were collected by Vinicius Salles from people he worked with, part of his process of creation. They are real stories by real people.
Translation by Vinicius Salles and Charlotte Price
Produced by Err(ə)nt
Design Milk Films Cafe
Commissioned by:
www.viniciussalles.co
Disruptive Narratives
www.viniciussalles.co
What's your question, thought, opinion?