GAWA

for female voice and ocarina (2021), 6 min.

Score GAWA

First performance: 21.10.2021
Tel Aviv – Regarding Festival
Voice: Inbal Brill
Ocarina: Snir Kaduri

composition commissioned by “LOUD” Foundation
for REGARDING Festival “GAIA” project

Many cultures share the myth of a creating, caring goddess who gave birth to humanity. She has many names. She is known as Gaia in ancient Greece, as NüWa in ancient China. NüWa first formed in her own image women out of clay. After that, she created men and put mankind on their way. The myth of Gaia goes even one step further back; she is the Earth itself, originating from the primeval chaos, she is one of first deities. All sciences talk about her, just as all children can. She is a stranger to no one; she is inevitably always everywhere. That means today more than ever that exploiting her is always directed against oneself. Some of the more recent evoked ‘new gods’ had the power to distract us from this basic understanding. As if “ignorance” and “distraction” themselves are gods – they have temples everywhere. We still measure natural disasters first in terms of insurance losses, just to forget about them moments later and turn our attention somewhere else. What used to be her screaming, shocking all nations, now only is heard as faint whispers; annoying events forcing us to take minor detours. Some of us are slowly becoming aware of this, but we have already begun to pay the price for it. A conversation with Gaia is beyond facts and reasoning. Any real conversation with her can only be a declaration of love. Children understand this better than science.

The text of GAWA was written by 12-year-old Mika (Israel).

The ocarina is one of the oldest instruments we still know of. Made of clay itself, it is – not in a figurative sense only – a child of Gaia. It is the translating and mediating instrument in this piece on Gaia. In GAWA things are said with words, sound, and pantomime.