By Carlie Fox
Websters Café, located in the heart of downtown State College, was filled with creative, artistic souls and the aroma of coffee on Tuesday, Sept. 26 for The Babel Duet. The multicultural duo, brought to Penn State in collaboration with poetry journal Trafika Europe, put on an incredible performance, one filled with singing, poetry and music combined. The performance lasted about an hour, but the crowd applauded for an encore once the clock struck 8:30 p.m.
The two performers that make up the Babel Duet are Aurélia Lassaque and Alima Hamel. Lassaque speaks three languages – one of which is Occitan, a globally endangered language. Occitan is known as the language of the troubadours and is only slightly spoken throughout southern France, northern Spain and some remote areas of Italy. The talented musician mixes her love of poetry and the arts to create a soothing and intriguing act based around her native Occitan tongue.
The performance moved the audience in a way that made them stop and reflect, mesmerizing them throughout the powerful performance. The woman behind the voice has performed all over Europe, Latin America, North Africa, India, Indonesia and some Scandinavian countries. Her poetry book Pour que chantent les Salamandres has been praised throughout the literary world.
Hamel is yet another talented musician, poet and singer. She sings in both French and Arabic, but writes strictly in French. Hamel has stated that bilingualism is a gift than enables her to spread an inspiring message to her multicultural audience. A native Algerian, she describes Arabic as “the language that comes from the back of her soul,” necessary to perform her art. She has produced three albums throughout her time as a performer and has traveled across the world. Hamel collaborates with Trafika Europe, the journal of poetry that travels across Europe, on her albums and performances.
Once the performance began, the audience dropped silent as Hamel started off with a soft spoken song in Arabic. Lassaque joined in on the music with a poetry piece she wrote in Occitan. The poetry blended perfectly with the tone of Hamel’s voice. All the music and poetry was also a cappella sometimes accompanied with an acoustic guitar.
The performance continued on with a mix of poetry by Lassaque in English, Occitan and French. Her poetry and musical tributes to the language were filled with expression that gave the readers a sense of the tone and overall mood of the poem. Even though a majority of the audience could not understand what the performers were saying, they could grab a sense of how they should feel due to the tone of voice, the passion behind the music, and the violent or soft strumming of the guitar.
As I sipped my chai latte amidst the crowd, the performance led into poems that had a certain call to nature. The poems and songs touched upon the sun, water, air, mountains, and sand that were present throughout these women’s lives. “Ulysses (I dreamt)” was the name of one of the poems repeated throughout the night. This poem reflected upon not only nature itself, but the certain sights, smells, and senses that occurred when surrounding themselves with nature.
There were a total of sixteen poems during the performance and seven songs, all of which overlapped each other to reflect each performer’s mood, creating balance and harmony throughout the night. Even though there were two, sometimes three different languages being spoken at once, the audience still had a clear understanding of what each section of music was about.
There were some quotes that stood out to me, as well as the audience who followed them with a slur of claps and snaps.
These lines come from from the poem, “Ulysses (I dreamt)”:
“The mercury into boiling water for our mother to predict our fate.”
“The devil was pledging her love.” “I don’t want to see myself in the mirror.”
These few lines touched me because I could truly feel the pain in the voices of the two women as they spoke of their childhoods, their lives, and the experiences they went through to get to the place they are now.
The performance by The Babel Duet was unlike any other. The Babel Duet is performing at a variety of venues throughout October. The Trafika Europe site, which lists their upcoming events as well as other performances like theirs, can be found here.
To find out what other events are coming to Websters Café, click here.
