Abstract
This article presents an approach to the book of Revelation from the perspective of translation as embodied performance. The performance is based on a specific hermeneutical framework from the Caribbean perspective of creolité, resulting in the actual performance of two passages (“Babylon has fallen” and “the New Jerusalem comes down”) in Papiamentu, a Creole language of the region. Thus, a modern Caribbean audience is challenged to engage with the text orally in relevant matters of oppression and the forging of a collective identity through the visions of John, the Seer. A brief sociocultural analysis of the book of Revelation and concrete performance criteria result in a basic script for audiovisual presentation. Ultimately, translation itself is a form of performance and performance is a form of translation. The preparation of the text and the actual performance open the door to a more concrete appropriation of the text through orality.
Introduction
This article approaches two passages from the book of Revelation from the perspective of translation as embodied performance. How does a performer go about translating and performing these passages for a specific audience that is familiar with the text both in the church and as part of cultural transmission? The notions of Babylon and the New Jerusalem have already become isotopies 1 in the culture of the Caribbean and even the world. The question is how to bring those written isotopies over to the kinetic, facial, ideophonic, and visual world of a concrete performance. This is not so much the performance of a translation, but a rethinking of a dynamic-equivalent translation in terms of orality. Thus, the intersemiotic text itself is a translation. Semiotics have shown us that sign systems are always rooted in cultures and in identities. The performance of a Scripture passage assumes cultural identity and purpose even in the case of when the source text was performed, while on the other hand envisaging the role of the performance for a modern community. The title of the article refers to the New Jerusalem that is brought to realization in the performance through collective creativity (chanting), empowered by the gospel message. Actually, there is no coming of the New Jerusalem without the falling of Babylon, as we will see later. The performance is done in “calypso” style, calypso being a very well-known international Caribbean musical genre from Trinidad that stands for the Caribbean as a whole. The music that plays a role in the performance is reggae music, which was born in Jamaica. Thus, the combination of the title and the actual performance also functions as a way of engaging the audience in thinking about images of the New Jerusalem and Babylon in Revelation and the implications for a pan-Caribbean identity.
Since the Papiamentu text is based on my translation of the Greek text, in this article no detailed attention has been given to source-language considerations; instead, I would like to home in on questions regarding genre, literary intent, author-performer intent, and cultural identification of Babylon and the New Jerusalem. The use of the published translation is strategic in that it satisfies the need of a substantial part of the intended audience who are familiar with the translation in print that the performance as such be Scripture proclamation and not an “ad hoc adaptation.”
1. Theoretical considerations for the performance
The book of Revelation has captivated the mind and imagination of the Christian and non-Christian over the centuries with its enigmatic combination of powerful narrative, “monstrous” metaphors, sounds, lights, and action. It deals with universal themes of good versus evil, justice versus injustice, and identity, embedded in the framework of Jewish salvation history, first-century Greco-Roman mythology, and the primitive Christian search for identity. The book has been described in different ways, traditionally as an apocalyptic prophecy and by Malina and Pilch (2000, 1–15) as “astral prophecy” where sky visions are recorded and embedded in a Jewish scriptural framework. The attraction of the book lies in its enigmatic key to what many have seen as the disclosure of end-time events while others have pointed to the historical interpretation as the hermeneutical key to its understanding. The performer who approaches this text has to take into account different factors which should inform and influence the performance as such.
1.1 Orality
First, the orality of the text is key to understanding the passage, without falling into what Hurtado (2014) has called “oral fixation,” 2 but linking the text’s orality with the oral nature of Creole language and cultures in the Caribbean and other regions in a church setting.
I.2 Purpose of the text and intent of the performance
Second, the performer has to make some decisions as to the purpose of the text and the intent of the performance. The historical-critical method has shown the text to be a mosaic of texts and text-types, while some literary approaches have advocated its unity as a powerfully composed hymn to the God of the persecuted. Stephen Pattemore (2004) has taken a relevance theory approach with which he seeks to see the focus on the people of God, an approach I agree with completely. On the other hand, though Malina and Pilch’s attempt at giving a social-scientific explanation of the text is a valuable contribution, it fails to set the text in the sociocultural frame of the ancient world. Barr’s critique of Malina’s earlier version (1995) of the same “astral” theory applies also to Malina and Pilch (2000):
3
Unfortunately, Malina does little of what he does best: social criticism. What I miss most in the book is any detailed reading of the social situation of its enunciation. Aside from the few remarks in the Introduction about having “as its goal the radical restructuring of society” (p. 22), there is little attention to the real-world lives of the people of Roman Asia Minor. Malina’s fascination with the sky prevents him from ever getting down to earth. (Barr 1996, 89–90)
And that is exactly what one wants to avoid in performance: presenting a text that is devoid of social meaning or spiritual impact, evoking pathos but failing to effect spiritual, social, and cultural change. The figure of the Lamb in the book of Revelation is clearly on the side of the persecuted ones and is out to destroy every Babel/Babylon so that the New Jerusalem can be envisioned. I agree with Pattemore that the people of God must be the focus, and indeed, the people of God as it becomes martyred for the cause of Christ while at the same time witnessing the triumph of God over evil. Schüssler Fiorenza (1991) has argued in her monumental work on Revelation that the hermeneutical key to the book is justice. The book of Revelation itself seems to give ample room to see a role for God in that plan of justice while, on the other hand, squarely placing responsibility upon the listener. The book is addressed to seven historical churches in Asia-Minor and specific injunctions are given for the faithful to stand firm and not become part of the Babylon system. After all, the New Jerusalem comes down from above and is moving towards this world, which must become a new heaven and a new earth, with a promise of eradication of all injustices. The book is framed in eschatological terms, but there is a strong apocalyptic indictment of the present, and a call to the people of God to be part of the war against Babylon through resistance.
1.3 Selection of material
Third, the performer has to make choices as to material, for the sake of time and other logistics. The purpose of the performance and the nature of the audience are key, just as in any kind of Scripture translation. The performer should not feel forced to perform just a linear text, but can exploit the fact that on a literary level the text is cyclical or recapitulative. Indeed, different scholars have defended the view that the text shows recapitulation, that is, repetition of the same themes and events in different forms. The text is part of a combined composition in which events are repeated and the same occurrence is illuminated by different visions in the narrative sequence (see Aune 1997, xciii). However, Aune makes a case for the chronological linearity of the text:
Most of Revelation formally consists of a single extensive vision report, which begins at 1:9 and continues to 22:20. This artificial literary unity has been imposed on numerous discrete units that have been paratactically linked together in an apparently chronological order; i.e., if the phenomenon of recapitulation is present, it lacks any clear formal literary indications of its presence or (perhaps more likely) belongs to an earlier level of composition than that now extant in Revelation. (Aune 1997, xciii)
Keeping the sociocultural situation of oral performance in the ancient world in mind, it would be easy to envisage how selections from the different versions or vignettes of the same narrative were presented depending on the different settings. However, Aune argues that the discourse formula “after these things” (4.1; 7.1, 9; 15.5; 18.1; 19.1) and the forty-nine times the writer uses the paratactic καὶ εἶδον “and I saw” “intends a temporal sequence and is appropriately translated by the RSV as ‘then I saw’” (Aune 1997, xciii). However, it could also mean, “In addition to this vision, I saw another vision which is a continuation, an elaboration, or a repetition of the former one.” Indeed the use of “then I saw” is more a discourse device to present the visions, which are not necessarily in chronological sequence in either a historical or narrative sense. Malina and Pilch (2000, 8) correctly argue that “the Book of Revelation is a composite work, put together in its present form from several pre-existing pieces.” Of course, there must have been an editor who has set the visions from the seer within a narrative framework (see 1.1-3 and 22.18-21), for ease of delivery.
Thus, if the text is not linear in its initial composition, but shows a linearity that is due to narrative convention, the performer can choose to show the linkage between the passages and present the visions in a way that juxtaposes the different voices. Selective readings and performances of a text such as Revelation would have been common in the early Christian setting. The recapitulation structure of the narrative does not imply that there is no end to the story; rather, it makes us wary of seeing a historical or logical development among all the visionary sequences. The story is linear in so far as it depicts the war in the heavens and on earth with a definite end, but it is through cycles of defeat and victory that it ends in a final victory for the people of God. 4
In the history of Christian praxis and theory, different passages of the book of Revelation, like any other book, have been more popular and have shaped the collective consciousness of the Christian church. In this performance, I have chosen two passages that are very much part of the Caribbean consciousness through songs, references, and cultural tradents: the passages on Babylon and the New Jerusalem.
1.4 Audience
Last but not least, the performer has to keep the audience in mind. Some pivotal issues have to be addressed in this specific case. In performance, as in any translation context, audience response, audience expectation, and audience definition are key. In the case of the written text, the audience is not immediately present, but is implied; in the Greco-Roman setting of writing in the service of oral performance, not exclusively, but very importantly so, the writer would also have the performance in mind. For live performance, the questions of audience interaction, physical realities, and cultural communication expectations are always present. In a performance done not for the originally intended audience, but as part of a conference on performance and translation, the translator-performer has to spend some time clarifying the characteristics of the intended audience. But any performance will only approximate the “performance for the original audience” since, for example, the audience in a modern church setting can never emulate the range of reactions of the originally intended audience. But this is true of all secondary and tertiary translation endeavors. We can never simulate the original impact since we cannot recover the original audience.
There are three important features of a Caribbean audience’s identity that the performer brings to bear on this translation for performance: orality, performing identities, and creolization. I will address each of these issues briefly.
Caribbean Creole languages are by definition oral languages that often coexist with an Indo-European language, usually the lexifier language, as in the case of Jamiekan and English or Haitian and French. This situation of heteroglossia leads to different language abilities and sociolinguistic segmentation among the population and in their attitude to their own creole and the prestige language(s). A performance in a Creole language touches on the very identity of the audience; at the same time, because of the oral-aural and visual nature of the performance, the performer engages the audience in ways a written text cannot, especially when the former is not just a translation that is being performed, but rather a translation made for performance. From an intersemiotic perspective, the whole “text” consisting of words, music, gestures, facial features, space and time negotiation, becomes a “textum” (an interwoven semiotic unit) that communicates. Oral performance brings the text closer to the audience, as many have pointed out. 5
Performance is an important cultural feature of many ethnic groups. In the Caribbean basin as in other parts of the world “performing identities” become a crucial part of survival as well as of creativity. The anthropologist Francio Guadeloupe (2008) has shown that Caribbean islanders can move back and forth among different identities (the island, another island, the “motherland”) without blinking an eye, depending on the sociocultural context. There is a sense in which the person sees him- or herself as genuinely belonging to different spheres of identity that are invoked depending on who the interlocutor is. This fits very well with the performance event where the audience is asked to perceive Babylon and the New Jerusalem as performers in a performance set up by John the Seer (or the final editor of his visions), which is now mediated by a specific performer. The fact is that even those who belong to the New Jerusalem can become or are part of the same Babylon system they are trying to overthrow. Moreover, public oral expression speaks more directly to the identity of the audience than a written text. Oral performance is an embodied experience, an intersemiotic event that includes oral-aural, visual, kinetic, gestures, facial expression, use of props, and even olfactory stimuli on some occasions.
This identity expressed in the oral performance becomes then part of the ongoing discussion on Caribbean identity in terms of the tension among “back to the roots” movements, where different ethnic groups are encouraged to seek their identity in the land of their ancestors, and the creolization forces that move towards the creation of new Creole societies. This struggle for identity can be expressed as an agenda to bring down Babylon and raise up the New Jerusalem. The exact identity of Babylon can differ from being the white oppressor, the local police force, or people in a higher social class. The goal would then be the ideal of establishing “Zion,” a New Jerusalem of racial purity, of going back to the roots.
But contrary to that view stands a more hopeful vision, a more creative movement fathered by the Martiniquan writer and philosopher Eduard Glissant, in which creolization, creative hybridization, is promoted as the solution to Caribbean identity, whether it be on a racial, cultural, or political level. This creolization as identity and ideal is clearly based on the historical reality of Creole language formation in the region, where Indo-European languages were the lexifier languages for new idiomatic realities based on African substrate languages. Thus, in this particular case, the performance of a Babylon or New Jerusalem passage would be part of a series of performances where the people of God, the New Jerusalem, is characterized by the inclusivity of “all tribes, all nations, all tongues” (Rev 7.9; 9.11-19). This characterization might also be what is reflected in another semiotic sphere by the New Jerusalem consisting of so many different precious stones.
Indeed, we are explicitly told that the heavenly city includes the many nations (21.24-26). The purity that is needed to enter the city will not be an ethnic purity (as only belonging to the Jewish race or people), but rather a moral, covenantal purity, an identity embedded in the salvation history of which the Lamb is both the agent and protagonist—those whose names are written in the book of the Lamb (Rev 21.27). Thus, we move beyond movements such as that of the other great Martiniquan writer and philosopher, Aimé César, who focuses on negritude, which, though a very positive emancipatory idea, divided the Afro-Caribbean descendants from other “sons of the soil” or people of mixed heritage. Glissant’s notion of creolité, which included all Caribbean peoples irrespective of their ethnic descent and formulated a philosophically mature stance of the Tout-monde, is one of the currents that inform this particular performance of the text of Revelation (Chanson 2005, 292–94). In that sense, Bible translation in Creole languages throughout the Caribbean region expresses and is part of this cultural process of “Creolization” as an ideology, and as a regional, but also universal, human tendency. Oral performance of those translations will only accentuate their exact nature and purpose.
The direct follow-up to the performance-translation in situ would be to engage the audience on topics of identity, Christian validation of ethnic values, and the role of orality/performance as identity. As we will see, the right intersemiotic translation is not only about transferring text to sound, but is a recontextualization of that text through oral performance. In order to achieve this, the performance itself contains linguistic, visual, and gestural features that lead to the embedding of the text in the audience’s cognitive environment. In order to provide clear intertextual guidelines, the performance is sandwiched by the music of one of the most seminal Caribbean songwriters, Bob Marley.
2. Performance analysis and presentation
2.1 Music
The semiosphere of music calls up a whole network of cultural signs and isotopies related to different themes. Reggae music from the Caribbean reality is no exception. The performance begins with Bob Marley’s song, “Chant Down Babylon.” In this song, Marley expresses the collective Caribbean attitude and use of the word Babylon as referring to oppressive powers. This attitude and usage existed already in different parts of the world, but it is Marley’s Rastafarian music that poignantly expresses the people’s concern with the powers that be in the post/neocolonial Caribbean context.
In the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, we find a number of correlated uses of the term Babylon. A key socio-linguistic aspect is that the term comes from the Rastafarian movement of which Bob Marley is an important protagonist. The term can have the following four meanings:
There is a cultural element to it in juxtaposing “Western-style society or government” against the local.
However, the issue is not so much a Western–anti-Western opposition but goes deeper:
The police, a policeman; a fireman or any agent employed in the established protective services of any (Caribbean) society. Those devils only brutalize poor people, when they patrol in strength, you know, gun or no gun. They’re a bunch of cowards, most of them. They only have brass face and gun play for poor defenceless people. This same West Kingston can bear plenty witness to that, plenty witness to Babylon brutality, from the time Black man first turn policeman. (Allsopp 1996, 55)
There is also a geopolitical element, where the white Western powers, especially the United States, are seen as the source of moral and societal evil:
Our moral disintegration began when we began to adore and lust for Babylon, and many of our so-called leaders encouraged Babylon system, their argument being that they were fighting communism. Babylon, you see, was not to send us her wheat fields, . . . or her petroleum deposits. No, Babylon sent us her gangsters, her drugs, her filthy, decadent movies, books, magazines, and . . . Belize became another garbage heap for Babylon’s waste. (Allsopp 1996, 55)
A more sectarian use is noted in which anyone who is not a Rastafarian is considered to belong to Babylon. There is, however, also a degree of moral evaluation, where the non-Rastafarian’s identity is linked to dishonesty, materialism, and anti-spirituality.
Rasta hates Babylon and society. Babylon represents those who take bribes to do their jobs. Babylon represents the police who brutalise mankind for promotion and fame. . . . Babylon represents the society that says “money comes first and humanity second.” Babylon represents the nation that spends money on weapons of war rather than on weapons of peace. Babylon represents the politician who tries to fool the people by making promises knowing full well that he will never fulfill them. I and I say that Babylon must fall. (Allsopp 1996, 55)
Thus a presentation of this passage in which Babylon falls will be seen by the interlocutors as an example of what they experience. Babylon is very much part of their experience. The references to the merchants and to the system will yield a profound reaction as to the need for socio-economic justice. The text says, “Babylon has fallen,” but the audience would know this as a wish, a prophetic future at best, but not necessarily a reality to be fought for. How can the performer bring this home as a part of reality in the present, a call to action, and not just the traditional eschatological reality?
The Rastafari 6 movement is an Afro-messianic movement born in Jamaica. It exerts a strong influence in dress style (typical dreadlocks), a sacramental use of ganja (marijuana), a back-to-nature approach, and a porkless diet, among other features. As a movement, it has played an important role in social justice issues and in the continual formation of Jamiekan, the Jamaican Creole.
Although the movement started in Jamaica, it is well known throughout the Caribbean, even the world. The songs of Bob Marley are also well known and therefore, the sound of “Chanting Down Babylon” is an inherent part of the intersemiotic presentation, leading the audience to process the text within the framework of social justice, the fight against oppression, racial and socio-economic discrimination. The lyrics impressively state that “Them soft” (They are soft): The powers of the world seem strong, but they are soft, they are weak, morally corrupt from the inside, so they can be taken down. And that is exactly the message of Revelation, that the powers of oppression, of evil, Babylon through Judeo-Christian history and literature, are always strong and aggressive, but ultimately will lose the battle, now, tomorrow, and again and again. 7
Bob Marley’s song incites to action, not violent action, but action that is summarized in the chanting. It is through reggae music, through the performance and proclamation of justice, that Babylon will fall. This clearly resonates with the Christian message of justice and liberation in a nonviolent manner. Of course, in the book of Revelation itself we do see the vivid imagery of war and battle even from the angelic powers against the powers of evil, but this should be taken metaphorically, since at the time of the writing and the extra-sensory experience of the visions behind the literary composition, the Christian community had no military power whatsoever. Regretfully, as we know, that has changed over time and church and secular history show ample proof of a militarized interpretation of these and other texts.
On another matter, the song is in Jamaican Creole, while the audience belongs to the Papiamentu-speaking population of the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao. So here again there is the issue of heteroglossia, where Marley’s songs are well known in other language domains in the region and can be used to stimulate discussion and evoke strong traditions. The Rastafari movement has a small contingent on Curaçao who also express themselves through songs in Papiamentu, the local Creole language. The actual analysis and interaction with the lyrics of Marley’s song should be part of the subsequent interaction with the audience, also to evaluate the actual effect.
2.2 Juxtaposition of Rev 18.1-8 (Babel) and Rev 21.1-8 (New Jerusalem)
The performance blends two texts that are the antithesis of each other. It is not an interpreter mediation of Scripture as mentioned in Karlik’s article (2012), where spontaneous oral translation takes place, but rather a case where an already existing translation is brought into an intersemiotic communication sphere, where sound, visual, and kinetic transformations are used to reinterpret the text and help the audience engage with it.
Babylon, as the symbol of Roman power in the sociocultural reality of John the Seer, stands for the powers of the world, while Jerusalem represents a place of hope, a present and future redemption. In Caribbean music and the general cultural domain, Babylon has a very strong fixed meaning related to different types of oppressors in different contexts.
One can conclude from the strong indictment of Babylon that it is only with Babylon’s falling that the New Jerusalem can arise. There is a dialectal link between Babylon and Jerusalem in the Bible, insofar as, according to an intertextual and sociocultural reading scenario, Babylon is always opposed to Jerusalem; she is used to punish Judah, but is punished herself in return for this necessary role (e.g., Jer 51). In another sense she is the topos from which something new can be started: languages (Gen 11), and a renewed people of God (exilic community, e.g., Isa 13–14). Rome, as the Babylon of early New Testament times (1 Pet 5.13), is the epicenter of persecution of the church but at the same time the epicenter of the church’s own internal maturing through struggles, which helps unleash new possibilities, a new heaven and a new earth where justice will be done (Rev 21). Some have even seen the Babylon of Rev 18 as a condemnation of Jerusalem itself (e.g., Aune 1998, 985).
History shows that the Babylonian exile meant the consolidation of the Judean people’s oral and written traditions. In Gen 11 we see that the people’s desire to arise against God meant idolatry, while, on the other hand, leading to a “fall into” the creativity of languages. The Seer knows that for the New Jerusalem to come, Babylon is necessary, paradoxically in both its ascent to power and its fall from power. In the visions of the Seer John, the harlot mimics the bride; she is the mirror image of the Bride.
2.3 Specific oral performance translation transformations
Certain features are introduced in the Papiamentu translation and some phrases have been restructured so as to help the performer in the oral presentation. The following is a short list of some of the translation transformations that were deemed necessary, exactly because of the oral performance.
Contraction (for di > fo’i (from); kas di > ka’i (house of ). Unlike the published translation, the text for performance employs contraction heavily. 8
Ideophonic additions were not in the published text, but they are necessary to give the text a “natural oral style.”
djublum
9
= sound of an object or person falling in the water ata = sound of perplexity, surprise ayayai = sound of pain, of lament ché = sound expressing disgust at something vulgar, obscene, or improper
10
tjiw = Kissing-teeth/sucking-teeth sound, made when “dissing” a person or showing disdain. It is very common throughout the whole of the Caribbean.
11
Deletion of explicit markers/phrases that introduce direct discourse, such as despues el a bisa “afterwards he said.”
Tone of voice—different “colors”:
TE = Tone, Engaging TC = Tone, Condemning TG = Tone, Glad TS = Tone, Surprised TP = Tone, Proud (reserved for Babylon speaking) TPV = Tone, Proclamation Voice
Use of silence (S)
Silence plays an important role in performance: both shorter and longer pauses can signal changes in discourse, tone, kinetic direction, while a longer pause, for example, can set up the final act, depending on the culture, where this is a set tradition. In Papiamentu, people would expect a pause at the end before introducing the final utterance.
Use of proximics/kinetics: gestures and facial expressions to communicate meaning
FA = Face, Angry FC = Face, Condemnatory FD = Face, Disgust FP = Face, Proud FS = Face, Sad FS = Face, Serene FS = Face, Surprise
Audience response
Audience participation is a common feature in Papiamentu storytelling. The question is whether, in a genre and performance event like this with an apocalyptic tone, it would be acceptable to the audience. One way would be to have the audience repeat a refrain like “Babel a kai” (Babel has fallen). In my case, I decided not to include audience participation because of the particular performance event. However, the same performance can be done with the inclusion of audience participation, depending on the setting.
Olfactory stimuli
In a longer performance of the Babylon-New Jerusalem theme a performer could play with different types of smell—symbolizing Babylon at the beginning with the sweet smell of perfume while finishing her fall with the smell of sulfur (rotten eggs!), or using a certain type of incense smell, like cinnamon or myrrh, to express the New Jerusalem. Of course, this depends on the culture and the situation of the performance event.
2.4 Spatial orientation (orientational metaphors)
Babylon looks down at New Jerusalem or the space where it is descending and at the end, New Jerusalem looks down at Babylon, who is on the floor (“It has fallen!”). The final condemnatory text of the New Jerusalem passage (Rev 21.8) is used in terms of tone, kinetic direction, and facial expression to embody the fall of Babylon. Thus, the second dead is a reference to the actual falling of Babylon. The performer leads the audience to link the passages together on different levels.
The fact that spatial orientation carries meaning and can be used in syntagmatic chaining is key:
Lakoff and Johnson observe that (in English usage) up has come to be associated with more and down with less. They outline further associations: up is associated with goodness, virtue, happiness, consciousness, health, life, the future, high status, having control or power, and with rationality, whilst down is associated with badness, depravity, sickness, death, low status, being subject to control or power, and with emotion. (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, chapter 4; in Chandler 1995, 45)
In our case this would be true of L(ow) and H(igh) (down and up, both relative as well as absolute), but we are also interested in how the recurrent use of this kinetic transformation from H-L to L-H and then implementing it within the other sphere (either Jerusalem space and/or Babylon space) would affect the audience. When the whole of ch. 21 is performed, the performer would place “New Jerusalem” firmly on the ground, thus not just an eschatological reality, but as a visionary call to action to bring down Babylon and elevate the New Jerusalem in the realm of the new heaven and the new earth. In this performance, the New Jerusalem remains in the air, but increasingly moves down, so that its descent is juxtaposed with the fallen Babylon. Babylon’s fall is dramatic, sudden, and violent. The descent of the New Jerusalem is elegant, timed, deliberate, and purposeful.
2.5 Props
An orange-red scarf is used to represent Babylon, making use of the cultural symbolism of red as related to prostitution/eroticism and violence. The scarf should at least look expensive and as if belonging to a person with some means so as to be the “visual translation in performance” of Babylon’s decadence. Her opulence and merchant spirit are thus in focus.
To represent the New Jerusalem intersemiotically, an actual Jewish prayer shawl is placed in another spot so as to symbolize that space. The color white in Revelation is a symbol of good and of the church, but for the Caribbean audience, a prayer shawl with different colors (white and blue in this case) with Hebrew writing on it stands as a symbol for the New Jerusalem. For some members of the audience, it would be good to avoid the black–white contrast for good and evil, because they have come to experience it as expressing racial boundaries or stereotypes in the culture. There are pros and cons in using the prayer shawl. On the one hand, it is clearly identified as belonging to the Jewish community and as such can symbolize Jerusalem. Thus, it evokes in the visual semiosphere, the history of Israel as against Babylon, on more than one level, and the fact that the book of Revelation is a Jewish Scripture mosaic. On the other hand, it could mislead people to only identify the New Jerusalem as symbolizing the people of Israel, while in the book of Revelation “all nations” are included. However, there are enough other indications in the chapter later on and in the whole performance event that New Jerusalem is inclusive of all the people of God. And as mentioned already, the visions of Revelation do not have to be linear, but rather are different expressions of the same reality or phases in the war between God and the dragon, Babel and Jewish Jerusalem, the all-inclusive Church and the Roman Empire.
In the Papiamentu translation that follows, the passages in
3. Script for performer in Papiamentu with English performance indicators 12
[start with bob marley song (30 sec)]
18.1 Despues mi a mira un otro angel baha fo’i shelu. [
Afterwards I saw another angel come down from heaven 13
E tabatin gran poder [
He had great power
i su splendor tabata iluminá mundu. [
And his splendor was illuminating world
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth
The City was ready like a bride that fixed body for husband
First heaven and first earth disappeared
And sea did not exist anymore.
[
18.2 El a grita ku stèm fuerte:
“El a kai! Djublum!
Bábel, e siudat grandi a kai.
Babel, the great city, has fallen.
Shuwush! Ayayai, Babylon
15
a bira un lugá di biba pa demoño, [
Shuwush! Ayayai, Babylon has become living place for demon(s),
Ata, [
Place of hiding for all kinds of bad spirit
Ata, [
Place of hiding for all kinds of impure birds
Ata, [
Place of hiding for all kinds of impure and repugnant beasts.”
I saw a holy city
the new Jerusalem
come down from heaven, from with God
18.3 “Tur pueblo a bebe dje biña tèrko di su inmoralidat, [
All people who have drunk from stubborn wine of her immorality
e reinan di mundu a kometé inmoralidat kuné,
the kings of world have committed immorality with her.
i e komersiantenan di mundo,
and the merchants of the world
riku nan a bira via di su dekadensia sin fin.” [
rich they have become through her decadence without end.”
18.4 E ora ei m’a tende un otro stèm fo’i shelu, ku a bisa:
Then I heard another voice from heaven, that said:
“Sali fo’i dje, mi pueblo! [
“Come out of her, my people!
Sino boso ta bira kómplise di su pikánan
If not you (pl) will become accomplice of her sins
i e plaganan ku ta bini riba dje,
and the plagues that come upon her,
lo afektá boso tambe. [
they will affect you too.
18.5 Pasobra su pikánan a monta yega te na shelu [
Because her sins have piled up reached to heaven
I Dios no a lubidá su maldatnan.” [
And God has not forgotten her wickedness.”
From direction of throne I heard a loud voice say:
“This is the place of living of God with human being.
He will live with them and they will be his people.
He himself will be with them as their God.
He will heal tears from their eye, and death will not exist anymore
nothing of mourning
nothing of crying
nothing of pain anymore
because all things from before have passed away.”
18.6 “Trat’é manera el a trata boso,
“Treat her the way she treated you.
pag’é dòbel bèk di loke el a hasi ku boso. [
pay her twice what she has done with you.
Basha ko’i bebe den su beker [K: pouring motion]
Pour drink in her cup.
ku ta dòbel mas stèrki [
which is twice as strong
ku loke el a duna boso bebe.
tan what she gave you (pl) (to) drink.
18.7 Kous’é mes tantu doló i fèrdrit
Cause her same pain and sorrow
ku e luho i dekadensia k’l a pèrmití su mes.
as the luxury and decadence she has permitted herself.
Pasobra e ta bisa den su mes:
Because she said to herself:
‘Tjiw! Mi ta sinta manera un reina riba mi trono! [
‘I sit as a queen upon my throne!
Mi no ta biuda, mi no tin mester di bisti rou nunka.’ [
I am not a widow, I don’t have to ever wear mourning.’
18.8 P’esei tur plaga lo afekt’é un dia: [
Therefore all plagues will affect her one day:
pèst, rou i mizeria di hamber.
pest, mourning, and famine
L’e kima den kandela,
He will burn with fire
pasobra Señor Dios ku ta husg’é, ta poderoso.”
because Lord God who judges, is powerful.”
[
He who sits on the throne has said
“Hear (good), I will make all things new”
Afterwards, he said to me:
“Write this thing down, because these words are faithful and trustworthy.”
Then he said to me:
“They have been fulfilled.
I am the Alpha and Omega
beginning and end.
To one that is thirsty
I will give to drink.
drink (for) free from the well of water that gives life.
He who triumphs will have all of this
And I will be (
[
But destiny of
Murderers
Cowards
Unfaithful
Perverts
Revellers
Practitioners of “bruha” (occult rituals)
Servants of false god
and all liars
it is in the lake of fire
and sulfur which burns (up)
This is the second dead.”
[
4. Conclusion
This article has attempted to show how a performer using a specific hermeneutical framework to exegete two seminal passages in the book of Revelation can use oral performance as a means to engage the audience with the text. The immediate purpose was to address a specific Caribbean audience with the Babylon and New Jerusalem themes in an audiovisual performance where particular verbal and nonverbal elements from the culture are used to open the text for the audience as a means of engaging their own reality and the possibilities of being or becoming a people of God through the mission of the Lamb in the book of Revelation. The book itself was analyzed as giving a cyclical presentation of its narration and visions and as possessing a message not just for a future but for the reality of the oppressed and persecuted in the time of the writing and, through a hermeneutical extrapolation, in all times. Thus, the approach is focused on orality and on Glissant’s notion of Tout-monde, which, starting from a Caribbean understanding of hybridity and creolized reality, reaches out to all human beings as becoming one, despite racial and ethnic differences.
Of course, in the book of Revelation this unity is achieved through a particular appropriation of the work and message of Christ, but a powerful and relevant performance can help the audience to engage with the text in a way that can achieve meaningful transformations. Translation of the text for performance and performance of a translated text ultimately do merge in an intersemiotic translation—a translation combining oral, visual, musical, gestural, and kinetic cues—where the text becomes a relevant entity that interacts with the modern audience as to their concerns and reality through the embodied performance which in itself is a translation.
Footnotes
1
Isotopies are guidelines
within
a
text
that
announce
repetition
and
coherence. There are different types of isotopies; they can be on different levels. I am using it not in the restrictive sense of just semantics as Greimas first used it, but in the wider sense of Umberto Eco’s elaboration that it is not only repetition, but that which gives direction to a text (
, 188–89). He sees it as an “umbrella term” for different textual phenomena. Any semiotic unit can be an isotopy. In this case Babylon functions as an isotopy in Judeo-Christian literature and oral tradition. It evokes different components and implicitly their contrasting pairs such as oppressive trade, arrogance, abuse of power. Isotopies are not only verbal constructions, but are expressed in other semiospheres in terms of, for example, colors, tone of voice, movement in space, lighting, camera angles, music, and gestures.
2
I have always defended a soft case for oral prominence in the Greco-Roman world and been skeptical of an overall claim that all “writing” was in service of orality. Indeed, Hurtado gives various examples of where performance criticism should be balanced with facts from the complex Greco-Roman interplay of written and oral communication. He correctly shows instances where writing as a form of communication by itself could have an independent, more “modern” function. However, despite the balance he provides, I regard the general results and direction of performance criticism to be legitimate. The problem has been with dogmatic and “extreme” claims that err by not taking into account these complexities.
3
For an excellent and balanced critique of Malina and Pilch (2000), see .
4
Taking a cue from semiotics, one wonders whether the original composition of Revelation may not fall under the rubric of what Claude Lévi-Strauss (, introduction) calls “bricolage” (a “tinkering” with textual/cultural traditions), where there is not always a set rational line between all the uses of other Jewish Scripture and Roman imperial history details. Rather, there is a creative free association in the creation of new worlds with uses and echoes of different text traditions regarding Babylon, Zion, eschatological and apocalyptic imagery, and primitive Christian reflections on the reality of the Greco-Roman Empire and any empire beyond that. One could say that there are different degrees of “bricolage,” and that any authorship, because of intertextuality, is at some level a “bricolage”; however, in the case of John the Seer, the “tinkering with traditions” is more intense, although not to the same degree as in compositions of mythology, as Lévi-Strauss postulated.
5
Reference must be made here to , a groundbreaking work in the analysis of the value and intrinsic role of oral performance in the interpretation, reception, and dissemination of Scripture, not just in the sense of seeing orality as a mode of translation, but also in the sense of causing a paradigm shift in our praxis and theory of translation.
6
, 466: “Ras Tafari (< Amaharic ras ‘chief,’ the title of an Ethiopian feudal lord or prince + Tafari family name of the [then] future Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia). The cult, developed in [Jamaica], believed Ethiopia to be the ultimate home of all black people, and its Emperor, by his original name, divine. The fusing of the title and name as one,
7
Besides the Jamaican theologian Delano Palmer, the following Jamaican mother-tongue speakers gave their input on the meaning of this song and Marley’s oeuvre: David Henry, Mark Royes, and John Royes.
8
The Papiamentu literary guild and official language institute has favored a “written” language where contractions are avoided. The issue is still under discussion.
9
Later on in the same chapter, references to the sea trade and the sea occur (Rev 18.17, 21). This ideophone anticipates the visual scenario.
10
11
12
There is an ongoing challenge and discussion as to how to script text for performance. In this case I used my own system, without any claim to universal application. Different researchers have offered suggestions as to how best to create an intersemiotic translation in script. Elizabeth Fine and Annie Joubert, among others, have tackled this issue. deals extensively with the whole matter of ethnopoetics. The next step would be to experiment with models from experts in ethnopoetics.
13
Given the focus on performance issues, this translation only gives the pertinent glosses and is not a grammatical morphologically tagged rendition.
14
The reality of the world as it is, where Babylon could rule. The performer points here to the realm of the “space” of Babylon in the room.
15
The names “Babel” and “Babilonia” in Papiamentu are used alternatively for Caribbean English’s “Babylon,” so as to link it to Bob Marley’s song and the range of explicatures and cultural isotopy.
16
The isotopy of the city of Jerusalem as a square building is based on the description in Rev 21.9-27. The city is flashy because it is made of different precious stones. The K: flashing lights movement will only be clear to the audience when they reach that part of the performance. In that sense, just as in a literary written text, through the kinetic semiosphere a performer can anticipate motifs, themes that will (re-)occur in subsequent texts.
17
The text has been shortened because of orality requirements. In performance less can be more. A dynamic-equivalent translation will not always suffice, because it makes explicit what is clear from the nonverbal, paralinguistic context.
18
The performer will decide whether it is necessary to repeat the explicit indicator of direct discourse, “Despues el a bisa” (afterwards he said). It is redundant in oral performance, unless it is used for rhetorical flourish or as a mnemonic device.
19
The order has been changed so as to have the list alphabetical, with the exception of gañadó “liars,” which is important as a specific group that is despised in the Caribbean search for justice. The cultural perception is, for example, of politicians and those in power always breaking their promises, being hypocrites, “liars.”
20
Finish with triumph over Babylon. Babylon is defeated but in relation to the New Jerusalem. Paratextual visual linking between Babylon and New Jerusalem.