Official Launch of the FSA & Homage to Shakespeare

OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF THE FSA & HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE IN ARGENTINA

Official Launch of the FSA & Homage to Shakespeare at the 38th Book Fair 2012 FUNDACIÓN SHAKESPEARE ARGENTINA

WWW.SHAKESPEAREARGENTINA.ORG

OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF THE FSA & HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE IN ARGENTINA

Official Launch of FSA & Homage to Shakespeare at the 38th Buenos Aires International Book Fair 2012

FUNDACIÓN SHAKESPEARE ARGENTINA

WWW.SHAKESPEAREARGENTINA.ORG

OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF THE FSA & HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE IN ARGENTINA

The Fundación Shakespeare Argentina was launched at the 38th Buenos Aires International Book Fair on 24th April. The event included a Homage to Shakespeare on the anniversary of his birth and amongst those participating were actresses Gabriela Toscano and Ingrid Pelicori, translator and university lecturer Dr. Rolando Costa Picazo, Dr. Jorge Dubatti, similarly a university lecturer and researcher, translator and lecturer Dr. Miguel Ángel Montezanti and Carlos Rivas, theatre director.

Opening, Executive Director of the Foundation, Carlos Drocchi, set out its objectives: bring Shakespeare to a wider audience; offer alternatives for studying and exploring his work not only in the formal education system ; facilitate interaction between artists and those in academia, e n c o u r a g i n g t h e m t o i n fl u e n c e and enrich each other; join or assist in different and isolated projects which may already exist.

Next, Mercedes de la Torre, explained what led her to conceive the idea of the Foundation and become the founder and President of the Fundación Shakespeare Argentina. She underlined the importance of approaching Shakespeare to bring content, beauty and poetry to our lives.

FUNDACIÓN SHAKESPEARE ARGENTINA

WWW.SHAKESPEAREARGENTINA.ORG

OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF THE FSA & HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE IN ARGENTINA

The event took place in the Victoria Ocampo Room of the fair, so actress Ingrid Pelicori read part of a talk given by writer and intellectual Ocampo during a conference to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth in 1964.

"What we can be sure about is that this man, Shakespeare or 'what you will', fell prisoner to his own creation because today, even if for different reasons from the ones that keep those erudite people awake at night, Shakespeare in no longer Shakespeare for us, the common readers. Shakespeare is Hamlet, is Portia, is Othello, is Ophelia, is Shylock, is Henry V and Cordelia, Titania and Prospero, Rosalind and Macbeth, Cleopatra and Puck, Lear and Romeo. He is his characters and nothing more. Nor anything less. Often for me he is not even his characters, but rather that which one or the other of them said in that or the other situation. Or he is the verse of a sonnet …. He is everything, is each and every one of us. His great waves have formed our coastlines; cliffs which, generation after generation, look towards what the French untranslatably call "le large". Once he spoke of ‘the uncertain glory of an April day’; April was his month, but his glory was anything but uncertain.”

The singularity of the Shakespearean text, comparative literature and translation, amongst other topics, were then tackled by Rolando Costa Picazo. He expressed his preference for a translation closer to the original and more rigorous, and mentioned the various texts available of the same work (the Quarto and Folio editions of Shakespeare). He furthermore considered the National Library scene of Joyce’s Ulysses, with its profusion of references and allusions to the English poet.

FUNDACIÓN SHAKESPEARE ARGENTINA

WWW.SHAKESPEAREARGENTINA.ORG

OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF THE FSA & HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE IN ARGENTINA

Miguel Ángel Montezanti spoke next and, as a translator, he expressed a preference for a more personal approach - still rigorous, but riskier. Highlighting the experimental nature of his recent translation of Shakespeare’s sonnets into River Plate Spanish, he read three of these, translated in a very direct and up-to-date style, in counterpoint to his more academic translations of the same Elizabethan verses with rhyme and metre and sounding the full range of their nuances and mix of subtleties and resonances - read here by the actress Ingrid Pelicori.

In a similar but more wide-ranging spirit, Jorge Dubatti favoured the here-and-now as the point of departure in the recreation of Shakespeare’s works. Readers, theatregoers, artists all interact in our own way with the Bard's work and, as Shakespeare has so much to say to us, what better than saying it in our own language?

FUNDACIÓN SHAKESPEARE ARGENTINA

WWW.SHAKESPEAREARGENTINA.ORG

OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF THE FSA & HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE IN ARGENTINA

Carlos Rivas then for his part focused on representation.

He explained his search for a clearer, rather than a more precise, language in his stage ver sions of Shakespeare's plays and valued getting the particular work across to the audience in the brief moment that is a staging.

Next, Gabriela Toscano described the genesis of Hamlet: The Metamorphosis and how she personally embodied the protagonist, talking also about staging (and restaging) the play in different venues. To give a taste of the production she herself was part of, a short and well-produced video was shown of her acting the famous monologue from Act III.

Finally, Ingrid Pelicori talked about her particular experience interpreting Shakespearean characters, agreeing that each staging is particular and influenced by the place and the times, a time and space (unique and unrepeatable) shared by the actors and the audience.

FUNDACIÓN SHAKESPEARE ARGENTINA

WWW.SHAKESPEAREARGENTINA.ORG

OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF THE FSA & HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE IN ARGENTINA

The Buenos Aires International Book Fair 2012 played host to a cultural event of great importance: The Official Launch of the FSA - unique in Spanish-speaking America - and a Homage to Shakespeare shared and enjoyed by all present.

FUNDACIÓN SHAKESPEARE ARGENTINA

WWW.SHAKESPEAREARGENTINA.ORG