Dear James,
Last Sunday I went to see a play. Friends' plays aside, I think this is the first play I've ever been to. Not that I went of my own free will, I had to go because I'm translating the play, My Life Afterwards, for Argentinian dramaturg Lola Arias. Apparently my translation is for the subtitles. How do you subtitle a play? I didn't like to ask.
The play is about six actors born between 1974 and 1983 and their memories of their parents and what they did during the 76-83 dictatorship. It's very good. I just spent worker's day translating it, which is probably a hugely fascist thing to do. I've just finished the part where one of the actors dances the malambo, a men-only dance originating from the Pampa in 1600.
This got me thinking. How come countries don't invent dances anymore? There's all these people writing plays, songs, films, books and whatnot, but outside the realms of pop music, no one seems to have come up with a new dance since, ooh, salsa in the sixties. Why is this? And is this a good enough excuse to post a video of children dancing round a maypole? Probably not, but I'm going to do it anyway.
2 comments:
subtitles for a play are probably like Opera translations - script runs on an lcd screen above the stage
my question is: how do you TRANSLATE the part when one of the actors dances malambo ?
Good question, Sansan. I just post a link to some kids dancing round a maypole. The audience click on that in their heads and achieve cultural equivalence.
PS. What's opera?
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