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Récitatif: Never saying anything at all (so much things to say) Courtesy of Nottingham Contemporary, 2017

Performance

Récitatif: I will make your tongue stick

Performance by Steffani Jemison in collaboration with Nathalie Ahadji. MABA, Nogent-sur-Marne

Saturday 20 January 2018 • 7:30 PM

Extramural

What if we need new words to build new social and political relations? In this new performance, artist Steffani Jemison and saxophonist Nathalie Ahadji perform a musical score in Solresol, a utopian language invented by nineteenth-century composer Francois Sudre to serve as a universal second language for Europe. Translating a verse from the book of Ezekiel—”And I will make your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth, so that you shall be mute and unable to reprove them, for they are a rebellious house”—the performance is simultaneously speechless and noisy, illegible and expressive.

Created in connection with Jemison’s video Sensus Plenior, on view at Jeu de Paume and MABA, the artist proposes that “communication can look like withdrawal, and expression can sound like resistance.”

Maison d’Art Bernard Anthonioz.
Bibliothèque Smith-Lesouëf
16, rue Charles VII – 94130 Nogent-sur-Marne