Monday, August 28, 2017
The Composition of Latinx Aesthetics
HowlRound: Whenever I am asked why I don’t have an accent, I say that I have an ear for music. Languages are a type of music, and communication an intricate composition. Recently, most things sound a bit “off” to my ear: a bit sharp, a bit flat, a bit muddled or loud. But the most problematic are the massive orchestrations of conversation that, having no true harmony, clash against each other with notes of expectations and givens, and the brass of ignorance—making it truly difficult to communicate with one another. That type of dissonance sounds unharmonious to my ears. It’s too chaotic. But the sound, like true chaos, comes together at brief points, upon which discerning ears perk in hope of getting a short snippet of the larger composition. It’s in that disturbing collision that listening begins: suddenly we are invested, suddenly we care to find harmony. Listening is a generous act. It engages our senses in beautiful ways and makes the possibility for harmony grow exponentially.
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Ms. Escobar writes that "when we value our input—our clap, our shaker, our rhythm—above the whole, our instrument fails in that which requires selflessness: harmony. It’s true for music and rhythm, and in my experience, also for a roomful of theatremakers." This snippet really struck a chord with me because it echoes a phrase we used to say in my high school theatre troupe: Leave your ego at the door. Art is made for an audience, it is made to be consumed. It is not created for its maker's sake. Thus, when we focus our art on ourselves, the composition loses its focus and impact.
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