A videopoem by the Russian Latvian collective Orbita (“Orbit”), made in 2001—I assume on videotape—and uploaded to Vimeo six months ago. Artur/Artūrs Punte and Diana Palijchuk are credited with making the video, the text is by George Uallick and Zhanna Shibalo, and The Trilobitum Coitus supplied the music. I love the fast-paced, playful energy here, making me re-play it multiple times despite not feeling that I entirely understand it. The main thing is, it’s fun and imaginatively shot and edited, and I remain intrigued.
One of my favorite poetry publishers, Brooklyn-based Ugly Duckling Presse, came out with an excellent bilingual anthology, Hit Parade: The ORBITA Group, in 2015. You can read Kevin M.F. Platt’s introduction, along with several of his translations, online at Deep Baltic. Here’s an excerpt that may or may not shed light on what exactly Uallick and Shibalo mean by “pits overgrown with ancestors” and “the hair of literature”:
Paradoxically, while they eschew nostalgia for the Soviet past, the poets of Orbita are the actual heirs to the legacy of cutting edge and experimental culture characteristic of Latvia in the last Soviet decades. Orbita is an intentionally trans-ethnic and trans-linguistic phenomenon. And this is one of the keys to its success: theirs is an avant-garde of cosmopolitan hybridity. In distinction from the majority of Russian cultural production of the Baltic region, these poets transcend marginality and provincialism by forming a literary bridge between ethnic enclaves, languages, and cultures.
Note: Long-time readers of Moving Poems may recall that I uploaded an earlier, lower-resolution YouTube version of this video back in 2011. Rather than simply edit that post, I decided to delete it and post afresh so others can enjoy re-watching it as much as I did.
I just received the following press release, which I’m happy to pass on. The Orbita anthology Hit Parade is one of the best poetry anthologies I’ve read in years, and I’m a big fan of the group’s videopoetry, which they’ve been making since the era of videotape. Watch five examples of their work on Moving Poems. —Dave
The tour will take place from November 14-19 in connection with the release in the United States of the anthology of translations of poetry by members of Orbita, Hit Parade. This bilingual edition, including poems in Russian and translations into English, was published at the end of 2015. Kevin M. F. Platt, professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania, served as editor of the volume and also among the translators. The book appeared in the New York publishing house Ugly Duckling Presse.
In the USA the Orbita Group will present a compact version of its poetic performance the FM Slow Show, with which it has appeared in a number of European countries. In this version of the show, poems with sound accompaniment will issue not from an array of radio receivers, but instead from portable loudspeakers like those used by tour guides and live street advertisers. In addition to Kevin M. F. Platt, the poets will be joined in their readings by various other members of the translating team behind Hit Parade, that included Polina Barskova, Charles Bernstein, Julia Bloch, Michael Wachtel, Maya Vinokour, Sarah Dowling, Eugene Ostashevsky, Bob Perelman, Karina Sotnik, Sasha Spektor, Anton Tenser, Natalia Fedorova, Daniil Cherkassky, and Matvei Yankelevich.
In the words of Sergej Timofejev, member of Orbita: “The full complement of Orbita has never before traveled such a great distance together—across the ocean. We are bringing along our texts and also our performance experience, accumulated over fifteen years of activity. We are also taking a bit of clothing and several bottles of Riga Balsam with Black Currant. All of this will doubtless come in handy, and we are also counting on the support of those who will attend our performances, and also of those who will keep their fingers crossed for us at home in Latvia.”
The tour was supported by the Latvian State Cultural Capital Fund, Amherst College, New York University and the University of Pennsylvania.
Orbita is a collective of poets, photographers, musicians, and media-artists that has played an active role in Latvian cultural life since 1999. Orbita presents poetic performances, creates installations, and publishes multilingual editions of literature and photography. The group not only disseminates the Russian poetry of Latvia, but also translates contemporary Latvian poetry, convening an intensive collaboration between Russian- and Latvian-speaking poets and artists. The group has appeared in many European countries, including Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, Ukraine, Finland, Russia, Croatia, Serbia, Slovakia. and others.
The group has been recognized not only by the public, but also by poetry experts. It has been nominated for and won prizes in a range of Latvian and international competitions: the Prize of the Year for literature from the Latvian Union of Writers, the Zelta ābele award and also the award of the Latvian Club of Art-Directors for book design, as well as the Purvitis Prize for visial art, the Sergei Kurechin Prize, etc.
The main participants in Orbita include: Artur Punte, Vladimir Svetlov, Serej Timofejev, and Semyon Khanin.
Edmunds Jansons made this video for a piece by the Russian-Latvian poet Sergej Timofejev, a member of the Orbita collective and a pioneer of Russian-language videopoetry.
Diana Palijchuk and Artur Punte added English subtitles to this Russian-language videopoem from Latvia, part of the Orbita 4 collection, which won the Latvian Poetry Prize in 2005, according to the website for the Orbit multimedia poetry collective and the invaluable services of Google Translate, which rendered this bio for the poet, Sergei Timofeyev:
Born in Riga in 1970.
Poet, author of five books of poetry (three of them were published in Riga and two in Moscow and St. Petersburg). He participated in many poetry festivals – in the UK, Holland, Sweden, Ukraine, Germany, Slovenia, Georgia, etc. Translated into the languages of those countries. In 1999 he became one of the organizers of a multimedia poetry project “Orbit”.
One of the first post-Soviet area began to develop the genre of poetry video (the first work – “Orchestra Rehearsal” was filmed and assembled together with director Victor Vilks in 1995). Other poetry video (in the poem “Light”) was involved in the finale of the festival poetic video “Zebra” in Berlin in 2001.
In 2003 he joined the short list of Russia’s Andrei Bely Prize. Along with the rest of the project “Orbit” was in 2005, the Latvian Poetry Prize for audio-video collection “Orbit 4.”
Continuing the theme of multi-media experiments with poetry, in 2007, has pioneered the development of the computer game “I am – Text”, and in 2008 and 2009, together with Arthur Punte realized poetic installation “Room-time” and “Energy Independence Poetry” at the Annual Forum of Contemporary Culture “Balta Nakts”.
Wrote some lyrics for songs by the band “OgneOpasnoOrkestr“, Brainstorm and Intars Busulis. His poems were published in a number of Latvian, Russian and international anthologies: “Dzejas Diena”, “Freed Ulysses,” “Nine measurements”, “This Same Sky (80 poets from 30 countries)”, “A Fine Line: New Poetry from Eastern & Central Europe”, “La Nuova Poesia Russia”, “Hotel Parnasus”, “Ord och spår (Words and Steps)”, etc. A short prose published in German in the book “Sprache Im Tehnischen Zeitalter”.
The most complete collection of texts written before 2005, is available here.
Sergey also oversees the poetic program “North-South” during the annual Days of Latvian poetry.
Thanks to Artur Punte for emailing and alerting me to what sounds like a thriving videopoetry and multimedia community in Latvia. This September they will hold their fourth Word in Motion event in Riga. Here’s some more background on the group, from a document Artur attached to his email:
Orbit (rus. Orbita) is a creative collective of Russian poets and artists whose works are dedicated to dialogue between various creative genres (music, video, etc.) and cultures. The collective came into being in Riga, the Latvian capital, in 1999. Since that time Orbit has published a number of eponymously titled almanacs in which literary works appear side by side with works of visual art (photography, graphic work, painting). Additionally, Orbit has organized three “Word in Motion” festivals of poetic video and multi-media art in Latvia (in 2001, 2003 and 2007); issued three audio compact discs and a collection of poetic video clips on VHS (2001) and DVD (2005); created several multi-media poetry installations for public exhibition; produced a number of bilingual (Russian-Latvian poetic publications; issued an anthology of contemporary Russian poetry in Latvia—at one and the same time a unique study of this phenomenon; and published a number of other works.
Orbit actively participates in Latvian and international cultural life. Members of the group have been published in many European countries and are frequently invited to European literary and artistic festivals—including, for instance: the International Moscow Poetry Biennial, the Berlin Poetry Festival, the Gothenburg Book Fair, the ARS Festival in Bratislava, the White Nights in Madrid, TARP in Vilnius, the Book World Festival in Prague, and many others. In Latvia Orbit’s achievements have been recognized with the Annual Literary Prize of the Union of Latvian Writers in 2005, the Annual Prize for the best photography album in 2006 and for the best photography exhibit in 2007, as well as a number of prizes for book design and various other literary and artistic awards. Since its founding Orbit appears in literary and multimedia performances in conjunction with invited musicians and video-artists.
The site www.orbita.lv (in Russian) provides an introduction to the works of the group.
Diana Palijchuk is the animator, and Arthur Punte did the montage. I found a Facebook page for the author, and he is indeed Latvian — the first to be included on Moving Poems — though, I presume, an ethnic Russian (his poems are in Russian).