Bodies Carry Borders

Yael Merlini and Sarah Stefanutti write and perform in Italian, English and Yiddish. Luise Fakler’s violin does not merely accompany the words. It penetrates them, holds its breath alongside them and propels them forward.

The texts move from exile towards the body as territory. There are languages, distilled like the work of an alchemist, and a mother tongue that is suckled without a breast. There are queer languages that question exile and roam the alleyways at night. There is a grandmother who mashes a sun-ripened tomato with a warm spoon, red ants crawling across the palate, and a Berlin kitchen where only radio waves sit at the table. There is a body with rings on its fingers and a fibula on its clitoris. There are eyes that are sewn shut, zipped closed or borrowed, and which refuse to apologise.

Some poems repeat themselves until the words are worn out, and the violin repeats itself with them. Others stutter until the translation falters and the bow pauses mid-breath. Heat turns to fire. Women’s voices multiply into a chorus – una di noi, unə di noi, one of us – and end mouth to mouth, whilst the house burns.

Nothing here is smooth. Languages rub against one another, creating cracks where they have been stretched too far, and the body is never a stable boundary.