Estados Unidos y la crítica a su sistema a través del arte (Mexico)
July 16, 2014
Un artículo con artistas e intelectuales, comparte una breve historia de la obra de Diamanda Galas, con vídeo desde Das Fieberspital.
An article featuring artists and intellects, shares a brief history of the work of Diamanda Galás, as well as video from Das Fieberspital. (Translation by Yaxkin Gutierrez)
Diamanda Galás (1955-)
Composer, singer, experimental pianist of Greek roots, has ventured in jazz, free jazz, gospel, blues and opera.
Due to the character of her presentations it has been said that her shows are specially executed, almost theatrical on stage. She has also sung in liberal churches and even recorded one of her CDs in the second largest cathedral in the world, St. John the Divine, New York, in 1990.
Her vocal range spans three and a half octaves and allows what are called “the most terrifying vocal sounds”: guttural voices, glosses (vocalizations that give base to harmony and melody of the composition) screams, and rending moans. With these she reflects the pain and lamentation of victims of genocide and torture, as well as the suffering, isolation, and despair of those who have died of HIV/AIDS related conditions.
A social activist, this Dark Diva (as she has been called) does not separate her macabre aesthetic from her activism. Her sensibility does not appeal to sentimentality, but provocation. More than once has she participated in public actions with activist groups in USA.
Galás has “We Are All HIV+” tattooed on her fingers, symbolizing her solidarity with the sufferers of this immune-deficiency syndrome. The tattoo serves also as a memorial to the life and death of her brother.
Art, literature and history are three of the sources that Galás uses to fuel her work. “Defixiones, Will and Testament: Orders from the Dead” 2003, for example, is a tribute to the victims of the Armenian genocide, during which more than 1.5 million Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians were executed upon orders of the Turkish state (1915-1923). Galás grew up with the stories that her grandfather had told her father about deportations, epidemics, and torture of Armenian/Greek,Assyrian exiles.
In several declarations has said that she is not afraid of threats or retaliation from the U.S. government, which she criticizes in her performances for their pro-Turkey and pro-Israel policies. She demands that these governments cease denying the reality of the Anatolian genocides and related massacres, and ask that they ally themselves with those who tell the truth, rather than spread disinformation.
