Krisztina Zimányi

From page to stage: Contemporary dance adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s dramaticules

The aim of the proposed presentation is to conceptualise the adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s dramaticules to the contemporary dance stage as intersemiotic translation, where a linguistic verbal code is de- and then encrypted into a non-linguistic and / or non-verbal one. Apart from the Jakobsonian taxonomy, the current enquiry applies translation theoretical concepts such as Nida’s dynamic equivalence or Newmark’s communicative equivalence in an attempt to apply rigour to the analysis, especially that Beckett’s own highly specific stage instructions would normally leave little room for divergence from the original plays. In addition, the study contemplates if the inclusion of the televised version of the same short pieces, produced by the BBC, may be considered as a relay and may transform this method into that of indirect translation.

Based on an actual performance designed, choreographed and presented by a collective in Guanajuato, Central Mexico, and a laboratory experiment conducted with acting students based on the same theme at a later stage, this talk will guide the audience through the creative intersemiotic translation process by analysing the kernels that were identified during the preparation phase and examples of how these were transferred onto the contemporary dance stage. Extracts from the English version of the Beckettian texts, stills from internationally recognised stage and screen adaptations, short extracts from improvisation workshops as well as local promotional images will aid to substantiate the argument, namely, that it is feasible to translate word into movement in a broader sense than in the page-to-stage adaptations of theatrical works, or even more than it was perhaps originally intended by Jakobson.

Keywords: dynamic equivalence, indirect translation, kernel analysis

Krisztina Zimányi has an MA degree in English Language and Literature, and Teaching English as a Foreign Language at Eötvös Loránd University of Sciences, Budapest and an MPhil in Anglo-Irish literature at the University of Dublin (TCD). She graduated with an MA in Translation Studies from Dublin City University, where she is also completed her PhD in the area of Mental Health Interpreting. She is currently a full-time lecturer at the Department of Languages at the University de Guanajuato, Mexico where she is involved in language teacher training and the promotion of translator training and translation studies. Her main research interests include interpreting ethics, their visual representations, translation in the New Spain, the cognitive and affective processes involved in translation and interpreting, and intersemiotic translation, with special reference to contemporary dance discourses.