*Alice and John Baltimore, 2023
We are Alice and John Baltimore. We are both 78 years old. We both worked as librarians all our lives. We met at a library too. Our son is a writer. Our daughter is a playwright. As is noticed, our life revolves around books and reading.
On a May afternoon of a sunny Helsinki day, while everybody was enjoying the Sun outdoors we coincidentally came across a Bookperfomance event at Oodi. It rose our curiosity. In our whole life we heard many things about books but not a Bookperformance. At least hadn’t yet until that day.
We entered the theatre room of Oodi, the magnificent library. The first thing that welcomed us was a language we didn’t have any idea about. The language was softly reciting a text which accompanied the black and white movie projection on the screen. Meanwhile, a young woman was writing on papers and placing them on the ground in total randomness. Maybe she knew the harmony that we couldn’t notice from outside. As more and more papers were being placed on the stage, more and more people were entering the theatre room. They might have been captivated by the mysterious language of the recited poem that was flowing on the music of soft bells.
Once all the papers were placed on the stage, the language suddenly changed, and on the screen we started seeing another artist moving rather fast. We also started hearing Finnish language. Through the open door more people entered the room. The artist on the stage started to move as if she was trying to catch up with the artist on the screen. The first language was smoothly heard under the Finnish language, which made us understand that the two languages were telling the same things. We couldn’t understand anything, because like most native English speakers we also speak only English unfortunately. Once all the pages which had been neatly placed on the stage were all scattered around by the artist on the stage, the Finnish text had finished as well. Then we heard the word “sounds” in English. That was the moment we looked at each other and said “The Tower of Babel”. The word “sounds” were meditative: “Sounds of sounds of sounds...”.
For years we have been doing meditation and yoga, and this was actually a moment when we were both influenced by the words that were native to us but told by a foreigner. It was a justification that you have to take a distance to yourself to see yourself better. The distance we took from Sydney coincided with the distance we felt towards our own language that was being recited by a Turkish artist in a captivating energy. The film on the screen changed into nature with the English language. The theatre room turned into a forest. And when we heard “it is not the tree but the forest that calls us, rise, rise, rise” we were already immersed into the scene. Just like some other inspired audience we also stood up and picked some paints and started to paint some papers which were merging into the Autumn leaves in the projected film.
In the end, we both felt very tired in doing such an activity at our age. Nonetheless, we also felt a deep joy to have got this experience, to have been part of a co-creation, to have met Çiğdem. A unique artist who inspired us deeply at our age. As a reverence to her art of co-creation we wanted to write this text together by always saying “we”. We hope you will someday come to Australia with your Bookperformance. We appreciate your intentions and creativity. Thanks U for reminding us “We”, in your words that “we are all one”.
*Alice and John Baltimore were the oldest people who ever joined a Bookperformance event on the stage. It was my pleasure to witness their vitality and to receive this text from them.