An article written by EVS Volunteer Alejandro Parages Martinez

Brama is the name of our theater and in Polish it means “gate”. In Spanish it doesn´t mean anything, but I would like to play with the letters of this word to find new meanings in my language. Words have secrets meanings behind their first appearance and language isn´t made of isolated words and meanings, it´s more like a web where everything is connected. If you start with one word, you can finish covering an entire language, and even other languages.

I will start by omitting the letter “b” of Brama. Then, we can read the word “rama” that in Spanish means “branch”. Somehow Brama has been growing like a branch for fifteen years, putting out and losing many leaves that are now spread all over Poland. As I worked on the construction of our new theater I sometimes felt that this theater is looking for a root, a life support which will allow it to grow new brunches and leaves. The dust, the soil, the water ... we work in a similar environment to the underground roots.

I would like to continue looking for new words. I will again omit the letter “b” and read the word in the opposite direction: “amar”, that in Spanish means “to love”. When I think in the definition of “love”, these lines by Fernando Pessoa always come to my mind: “Loving is eternal innocence, and the only innocence is not thinking”.

An idea, a belief, a conviction can be part of the feeling we call "love", but this love will always be illusory. Love is beyond words and definitions, beyond rational knowledge. The word is never the thing and to experience what we call “love” we only need enough room in our conscience, without barriers. Only a free mind can know love.

“Not thinking” is being in touch with our inner space, our most intimate essence, a space that is always innocent and where everything comes and goes: emotions, sensations, fears, thoughts... A mind full of thoughts doesn´t know anything about this because it´s always changing from one thought to the next one, it´s slave of the word and language.

The space of the theater stage is the equivalent in the outer world. Artaud said that “the actor is an athlete of the heart", and it´s true, but the actor is also a person that knows the distance within the heart, a distance that allows him to play. The actors have to be aware of the physical space of the stage as well as their inner space, as musicians are aware of silence and the painter of a white canvas. To be aware of the space doesn´t mean to know where to place the actors and how to move them, it´s not a knowledge that can be learned. It´s more related with being aware, with being completely alert.

In our performance “Emotion in sound”, during the last song all of us sing in a circle illuminated from the center by a soft light. The first time I was in this circle was the first time I saw the stage like a house, a place where feelings, words, sounds and gestures are guests which come in, rest and finally leave. The empty space of the circle, the absence of light and the silences of our song create a feeling that everything born in that moment and space has strong power.

To finish this play with words, we can put an “r” in the end of the word: “bramar”. This is something that a person makes when he expresses anger with inarticulate sound and extreme violence. It´s a strange surprise to have found a definition that contains “anger” after having found the verb “amar” or “to love”. Feelings are made of contradictions and when fighting for love, sooner or later we will find hate and indifference. This mix of feelings always creates confusion and lack of understanding on the thinking mind, but confusion is a very powerful tool which is often rejected nowadays. As Eugenio Barba said: “every time we turn on the television, open a newspaper or listen to a politician or an expert, the world is presented to us as something that has been understood and can be explained (…) The need to be understood impels us to censor our reaction and feelings which we are unable to understand in depth”.