ERNESTO ESTRELLA CZAR VOICE | PERFORMANCE POETRY | EDUCATION

www.grownewears.com

ERNESTO ESTRELLA CZAR www.grownewears.com

Photo: Natalia Spollansky

OUT OF THE WORD, INTO THE SOUND

Out of the word, into the sound investigates, through the voice, the poems potential beyond its meaning-based content and the extension of poetic thought into sound. Confronted with an idea, the voice becomes an accurate blade, its design a porous diagonal that cuts through the realm of sound possibilities that are offered. Poems belonging to my Sound Map of Poetry, my multimedia work Achronos, and pure sound pieces from my project The Voice thinks a Body, make up this performance. Disintegration of language Spanish, English, and German here into a sound search, leads to the emergence of a space of communication that occurs beyond the linguistic barrier. It is then that an opportunity arises for the voice to think. Time: 40 minutes. Technical specifications: PA system with basic effects on mixer, microphone and mic stand, music stand, projector and screen. Out of the word, into the sound was partially premiered at the Bowery Poetry Club in NYC, and was performed in the summer of 2010 in Berlin (Wortwedding: Gallery Space for Poetry), Kaliningrad (Slowwwo Poetry Festival), and St. Petersburg (Kitaisky Letchik Club). It was also presented in NYC at The Tank in December 2010 and held at New York Universitys King Juan Carlos Center Poetry Series in April, 2011; during this last shows a CD with a studio version of Out of the word, into the sound was premiered. In July 2011, a mini tour in the Centros Culturales de Espaa brought the performance to Argentina (Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Rosario) and Uruguay (Montevideo).

ERNESTO ESTRELLA CZAR www.grownewears.com

Notturno, Marcelo Toledo

OPENING THE POEM

In this performance the voice confronts poetry reading as an act of opening. Stable sound surfaces, such as intonation curves, words, phonemes, or breathing, are only the most recognizable elements towards the exploration of this act. The program includes a triptych based on the idea of the poem as gift (Timeo Danaos et dona ferentis / Beware of Greeks bearing gifts), a sound interpretation of Walt Whitmans Song of the answerer, and a section (Listen) of live and recorded interaction with musical and dance pieces, along with Spanish, Russian and Finnish contemporary poems. Opening the poem means sharing the core of the poems creative process through sound towards an experience that turns the listener into a threshold, and the ear into the stage where a bond can appear. Time: 40 minutes. Technical specifications: PA system with basic effects on mixer, 2 microphones and mic stands, music stand, projector and screen. Opening the Poem was presented during March 2011 in Moscow (Caf Bilingua, Moscow), St. Petersburg (Modernariat Gallery and Anna Nova Gallery), Jyvskyl, Finland, (Live Herring: Media Art Festival), Riga, Latvia (Kim? Gallery). The show was also performed in November 2011 in New York at Le Poisson Rouge, and at the Bowery Poetry Club in December 10th as part of its World Poetry Series.

ERNESTO ESTRELLA CZAR www.grownewears.com

BIO
Ernesto Estrella Czar is a sound artist, poet, and educator born in Granada and living in New York since 2000. He obtained his Ph. D. at Columbia Universitys department of Spanish and Portuguese, and between 2007 and 2011 he was Assistant Professor of Hispanic Poetry at Yale University. As a scholar, he has published critical articles in prestigious journals, and has been invited to a number of international conferences, talks and workshops related to his field. While an educator at Yale, along with Latin American and Spanish literature, culture, and cinema curriculum classes, he crafted his courses Poetry Off the Page and Poetry of the Spanish Civil War. In addition to his university engagements, he regularly teaches workshops that interweave philosophy, politics, arts and ethics. One of them, called Reading the Poem as Present, was held in April 2011 at the Bowery Poetry Club as part of New Yorks Spanish Consulate cultural program. A Spanish version of it took place at the Centro Cultural de Espaa in both Buenos Aires and Montevideo in July 2011. As a poet, Ernesto has been included in anthologies such as Cuadernos del abismo (2008) and El tejedor en Nueva York (2011). His multimedia book Achronos, a collaboration with Berlin-based photographer Nyssos Vasilopoulos, appeared as part of CUNYs Virtual Poetry Project, and his book Boca de Prosas (Mouth of Proses), a hybrid of prose poems and short stories, is currently in press. He is now working on a long poem-novel entitled Escuela de tu nombre (School of your Name), fragments of which have already appeared in poetry journals. As a sound artist, he has created a wide array of compositions, some of which have already been introduced into his poetic performances, Out of the Word, into the Sound (also existing as studio CD), and Opening the Poem, presented at international festivals in Argentina, Uruguay, Austria, Germany, Russia, Finland, Latvia and the U.S. His most recent collaboration occurred in a piece by Spanish composer Mauricio Sotelo, entitled Cuerpos robados (divided orchestra, violin and voice). It was premiered at the Klangspuren Festival of Contemporary Music, in Schaz-Tirol, and will be performed this coming March in duet form with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja at the PraetoriusMusikpreis in Hannovers Schauspielhaus. As a musician, he has been writing and performing music with his experimental rock/jazz band, Hellhoundsound, of which he is founder, singer, and lyricist. He is also co-founder of the trio, MES, which focuses in creating strategies to move creatively between improvisation and composition.

ERNESTO ESTRELLA CZAR www.grownewears.com

PERFORMANCES | WORKSHOPS | INSTALLATIONS 2012-2011

On no Work of Words (Performance) Jornada de Poesa Hispana, Rutgers-Camdem Latino Studies Program (New Jersey), 16/2/2012. Busboys and Poets, Washington D.C., 10/3/2012. Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain, (tba). Antic Teatre, Barcelona, Spain, (tba). Cuerpos robados. (Peformance; for divided orchestra, violin and voice, by Mauricio Sotelo) Klangspuren Festival of Contemporary Music, Schaz-Tirol, Austria, 8/9/2011. PraetoriusMusikpreis, Schauspielhaus Hannover, Germany, 24/3/2012.

2011-2010
Opening the Poem. (Performance) Caf Bilingua, Moscow, Russia, 6/3/2011. Modernariat Gallery, St. Petersburg, Russia, 11/3/2011. Anna Nova Gallery, St. Petersburg, Russia, 12/3/2011. Live Herring: Media Art Festival, Jyvskyl, Finland, 15/3/2011. Kim? Gallery, Riga, Latvia, 18/3/2011. Le Poisson Rouge, NYC, 16/11/2011. Bowery Poetry Club: World of Poetry Series, NYC, 10/12/2011. Sonography: An Homage to Uruguayan poet Julio Herrera y Reissig. (Performance by MES trio) Veladas Beatnick, Montevideo, Uruguay, 15/9/2010. Le Poisson Rouge, NYC, 18/2/2011. Box of Horizon (Installation) Main Street Museum, White River Junction (Vermont), July-August 2010. Out of the Word, into the Sound. (Performance) Bowery Poetry Club, NYC, 5/3/2010. Wortwedding: Gallery Space for Poetry, Berlin, Germany, 19/8/2010. Slowwwo Poetry Festival, Kaliningrad, Russia, 21/8/2010. Kitaisky Letchik Club, St. Petersburg, Russia, August 25/8/2010. The Tank, NYC, 15/12/2010. King Juan Carlos Center Poetry Series; New York University. NYC, 31/3/11. Salir de la palabra, entrar al sonido (Performance) Centro Cultural de Espaa, Crdoba, Argentina, 5/7/2011. Parque del Centro Cultural de Espaa, Rosario, Argentina, 7/7/2011. Centro Cultural de Espaa, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 8/7/2011. Centro Cultural de Espaa, Montevideo, Uruguay, 22/7/2011.

ERNESTO ESTRELLA CZAR www.grownewears.com

PERFORMANCES | WORKSHOPS | INSTALLATIONS 2011-2010 cont.

Reading the Poem as Present. (Workshop) Wortwedding: Gallery Space for Poetry, Berlin, Germany, 19/8/2010-22/8/2010. Bowery Poetry Club, NYC, 9/4/2011-20/4/2011. (part of New Yorks Spanish Consulate Cultural program) Brooklyn College, NYC, 5/7/2011. El poema como presente. (Workshop) Centro Cultural de Espaa, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 12/7/2011-14/7/2011. Centro Cultural de Espaa, Montevideo, Uruguay, 21/7/2011. How Does Sound Translate. (Workshop) Hampshire College, Amherst (Massachusetts), 23/2/211. Achronos. (Installation) IATI Theater, NYC, July 2010.

AUDIO
Sound Map of Hispanic Poetry / Achronos / MES trio http://soundcloud.com/ernescozar/sets Hellhoundsound: www.myspace.com/hellhoundsound

VISUAL
Opening the Poem, New York: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSerXv8UaJk&list=PLF97D2112D2025B71&feature=view_all How Does Sound Translate, Hampshire College: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJY88UooCnU&list=PLE2CEB350C2752A62&feature=plpp_play_all Out of the Word, into the Sound, New York: http://vimeo.com/24274890 Salir de la palabra, entrar al sonido, Buenos Aires: http://vimeo.com/26495072 Achronos, CUNYs Virtual Poetry Project: http://nml.cuny.edu/poetryproject/vpp/index.php/vpp/issue/view/2/showToc