Taroots

2023
Poetry and music performance by Wissal Houbabi and Roberto Paci Dalò. Houbabi and Paci Dalò have been collaborating since 2020, when they created the podcast Crown for Usmaradio featuring the text “Taroots”, which later evolved into the eponymous poetry and music performance that was a finalist for the “Alberto Dubito” Prize in 2019.

The prerogative is to overturn the perspective of reality, like an hourglass, from double absence to fluid consciousness: identity is always the same while never being so, it is irreducible and it is Mediterranean. The music moves from traditional elements of the mediterranean area, particularly voices, to today’s electroacoustic research. Acoustic instruments, samplers and live electronics are used to create a sound environment in counterpoint to the textual materials. A score as “island book” and archipelago. Taroots is everything that can be breathed in the sounds and imperceptible syncretisms of peoples who no longer recognise themselves as part of a collective identity. As Ortega y Gasset said, “when the Mediterranean was a reality, neither Africa nor Europe existed.”

Wissal Houbabi for Taroots
credits pics: Archivio Giardini Pensili

Credits

Taroots
a project by
Wissal Houbabi & Roberto Paci Dalò

text, voice
Wissal Houbabi
music, voice, clarinets, live electronics
Roberto Paci Dalò
production
Giardini Pensili