ICYMI (In case you missed it): Last week I found out that I’d accidently been going to the wrong class for the better part of a month, and I probably would never have figured it out if it weren’t for my new friend. I’m super grateful for her help and our shared laughter over my naivety. I’ve been feeling pretty lonely/isolated recently, so when she mentioned that her improv group was having their last show of the season on Friday night and that I should come, I immediately said yes – I mean anything is better that laying (lying?) in bed, alone on a Friday night, ya feel? This is the story of my first experience with “soundpainting”:
So my new friend is a little older than me; she took a break from school to do some acting stuff, then got started on a whole new course of study. We hadn’t really talked much before but she seemed cool? Anyways she sent me the event details right after I said yes, but I didn’t think to look at them until the day before the show because I assumed it was just a small-scale, SNL-type gig; I’d never really been to an improv show before. Little did I know, soundpainting looks a little different than your average-joe improv show.
Soundpainting is a kind of sign language that a soundpainting “composer” uses to coordinate an avantgarde mash-up of acting, poetry, singing, and musical interludes from a troupe of actors and musicians. I have yet to develop a great depth of knowledge, understanding and appreciation for the visual arts, so trying to experience them in another language was definitely a challenge.
The show itself was held in a funky independent theater, called El Piso; it’s the kind of place that doesn’t have a sign outside, where you have to ring a doorbell to gain entry to the second-floor theater. El Piso hosts a bunch of “alternative” performances and workshops in a black box theater and serves as a chill after-hours hangout spot, thanks to the well-stocked bar and kitchen. The space itself has an amateur art gallery, a smattering of mismatched furniture, and a spacious porch. El Piso also happens to be one of several independent porteño theaters that has popped up in an abandoned telo.
SIDE NOTE: What is a telo you might ask? It’s a rent-by-the-hour sex motel. They are usually very unassuming from the outside and you can find them throughout the city. Telos vary in quality, just like any kind of hotel or motel – instead of room service, some of the nicer telos have sex toys you can rent – but they all serve the same purpose. It’s all handled in a very business-like manner; they usually provide condoms and wakeup calls, and usually ask that you leave the telo with your significant other – just to make sure there was no foul play. I don’t have facts to back this up, but I assume that they are very popular among young people because young adults tend to live with their parents until they’re slightly older than they do in the USA.
Anyways since I went to the performance by myself, I ended up sitting in the last single-person spot in the front row. I settled in to the bench seat to watch a barefoot, pony-tailed guy conduct a series of noises and gestures from the girls sitting on the side of the stage in the small – no, intimate – black box theater. I wasn’t sold on the performance initially, but I admit that I grew to like the odd mix of poetry, song, acting, and a guy reading from an aging novel. Does this sound like a club that SNL Stefon would recommend yet – lmk?
The show had two main plot lines: 1) a love story between two tifones (typhoons – yes, like the South Asian rain storms), and 2) an ode to true love, which was intermittently interrupted by cast members yelling all over each other that he was an idiot for believing in that shit. I didn’t understand some of the references and language; I didn’t know what a tifón was until after the show, but it also turns out that the majority of the actors didn’t know what they were either – they just went with it. The other plotline – the ode to true love – was a little easier to understand. After the cast members had been yelling at him for some time, the ode-reciting cast member started flipping out and climbing all around the audience. Needless to say, the performance itself was an EXPERIENCE, to say the least.
After the performance I congratulated my friend and we went to grab a beer at the theater’s bar. She seemed really glad that I was there (and a little surprised that I didn’t bail; though to be fair, I almost did when I found out what soundpainting was). We talked kinda awkwardly for a bit while munching on leftover free popcorn. When she went to go grab her share of the night’s earnings, I started chatting with the guy sitting next to me, and we got into a surprisingly deep conversation about health care systems (what I’m studying) and math education (what his job is). Apparently, I was the first American he’d ever met, so we spent a bunch of time comparing social inequalities between our respective countries.
That one conversation turned into a series of conversations with the rest of the cast, and I ended up spending the better part of three hours drinking, smoking and chatting with them. While I didn’t understand the majority of the slang they were using, it just felt so nice to be around people my age in a casual, light-hearted setting. When I left just after 2AM, the rest of the group continued their leisurely conversation with no intention of leaving any time soon
All-in-all, the social experience was definitely different from the frat-driven social scene at Tulane, but in laid-back way that I really enjoyed. Maybe it’s because the people I was hanging out with were older and we didn’t have to worry about legal drinking ages, but the relaxed vibe is definitely something I want to take back to my social life at Tulane. While I don’t love constantly worrying about fucking up conversations in a different language with people I don’t know, I am so grateful for this opportunity to reflect on my social life while studying abroad, so that I can make choices that will make me happier and healthier when I return to Tulane.
La gringa porteña 