The trilogy of Babel – Wrestling with language

Florent Golfier

"Wrestling with language" is the first part of a bigger project called "the trilogy of Babel". It is a long-term research project on monolingualism and multilingualism that will ultimately result in the creation of three productions.

photo: Michal Hančovský

First part: Wrestling with language
Premiere: 12^th and 13^th December 2019, Divadlo na cucky, Olomouc
Prague premiere: 8^th June 2020, PONEC - dance venue, Prague, TANEC PRAHA - festival

"A spoken language is a body, a living creature, whose physiognomy is verbal and whose visceral functions are linguistic. And this creature's home is the inarticulate as well as the articulate." - John Berger, Confabulations

Wrestling with Language is an attempt to conceive of language as the creature John Berger wrote about. A creature that lives inside of us and inside of which we all live. In this new project, performer and choreographer Florent Golfier takes on the topic of monolingualism, cheerfully wrestling pronunciation, normative language, and the necessity to express oneself.

Team of the project:

Author, choreography, interpretation: Florent Golfier
Choreographic consultations: Peter Šavel
Scenography: Marie Gourdain
Light design: Zuzana Režná
Sound dramaturgy: Ian Mikyska
Linguistic consultations: Prof. Dr. Barbara Mertins
Costume realisation: Martina Stieglerová, Magdaléna Vrábová

The project is supported by

the Ministry of Culture, the City of Prague, the City of Brno and the National found for culture.

Co-producers: DW7 and The Na Cucky Theatre in Olomouc, the festival TANEC PRAHA and the Schloss Bröllin e.V.
Other partners: Studio ALTA, SE.S.TA (center for choreografic developement), Castle of Žďár nad Sázavou, Cooltour, cultural center in Ostrava, Ponec, theater for dance in Prague, Plum Yard in Malovice, "le Dancing" in Val-de-Reuil (FR), TU Dortmund psycholinguistics eyetracking laboratory, Ministry for education, science and culture of the country Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, The district Vorpommern-Greifswald, Johan centrum – Moving Station in Pilsen.