DESCRIPTION:
Performed live on the third annual Resonant Bodies Festival
September 11th, 2015, at Roulette in Brooklyn, NY.

from Ipsa Dixit (2010–Present)
Kate Soper (b. 1981)

I. Poetics (2015, text by Aristotle (abbr./adapted Soper) and Sophocles)
voice, flute, percussion, and violin

The Wet Ink Ensemble
Kate Soper, voice
Erin Lesser, flute
Josh Modney, violin
Ian Antonio, percussion

About the Program
"Ipse Dixit" (literally "he himself said it") is a lawyerly term used to describe an unproven statement whose validation is demanded solely on the premise of the speaker's presumed expertise. Ipsa Dixit ("she herself said it") is an ongoing exploration of the intersections of art and language via a skeptical investigation of the role of the singer as gatekeeper of meaning, sentiment, and expressivity. This piece is made possible due to the fascinating texts by its half-dozen or so authors, to Aristotle (who tends to tie it all together even in brutally abridged form), and to the dedication and jaw-dropping talents of my fellow Wet Ink members Ian Antonio, Erin Lesser, and Josh Modney.  —Kate Soper

I. Poetics

What is art? Art is imitation.

Art is imitation, and the different arts may differ in the medium of imitation. In the music of the flute and of the lyre, harmony and rhythm are used, whereas in dancing only rhythm is used. Other arts use language alone, although the presence of a metre in a scientific text does not make its author a poet, nor does the use of more than one and many constantly changing metres disqualify a poet. There are some arts which use all of the media just described.

Tragedy is the imitation of an action using character, mentality, spectacle and music- making. “Character” allows us to evaluate the agents and is revealed through their mentality. Some think the audience incapable of understanding art without the added element of excessive pantomime: this error does not touch the artist, but is charged to the performer. Other elements of tragedy are spectacle and music-making. Spectacle may have emotional resonance but does not belong to art. The meaning of music-making is obvious to everyone.
Tragedy is the imitation of an action that is complete and whole and of a certain appropriate magnitude. To be complete and whole is to have a beginning, middle, and end. A beginning is that which follows from nothing and yet has a thing which follows upon it. An end is a thing which naturally follows upon something else and has nothing following. A middle is that which follows from something as some other thing follows it. A thing whose presence or absence makes no discernable difference is not a part of the whole. Any beautiful work of art that is so comprised of parts must have a certain appropriate magnitude: not so small that it may be comprehended in an almost imperceptible moment of time, nor so large as to lose the to holon [“the oneness”]. In Tragedy, the appropriate magnitude is the time it takes for fortune to change from good to bad.
Tragedy is the imitation of an action not told but performed, using hedus menos logos [“sweetened language”] language embellished with harmony and rhythm. The clearest style is vulgar and low. The use of exotic expressions creates a style semne [“exotic”] and to idiotiken [“not like the usual”], however this usage when overindulged may result in gibberish. Works of art are held to different standards of correction than those of politics or ethics. Thus plausible impossibilities are allowed in art, if they serve dramatic purpose. In art, it is a lesser error to be ignorant of something than to represent it badly. Where A is to B as C is to D, may A stand for C and B stand for D. As the sower scatters seeds, to the sun’s rays scatter light, and so we may describe the sun as speiron theotikstan phloga [“sowing god-given light”]. As art is imitation, the poet should speak as little as possible in his own voice. The most important element of tragedy is the construction of the plot.
Tragedy is the imitation of an action whose plot evokes elios [“pity”] and phobos [“fear”]. We must therefore ask: what kinds of events strike us as terrible or pitiable? Pathos may be evoked through the use of onstage murders, woundings, and so on. These effects will be stronger if produced through surprise, and still stronger if by apparent design. It is the job of the poet to use imitation to make you enjoy these tragic emotions which are best produced through anagnorsis and perepeteia.
Anagnorisis is a change of direction in the course of events. Perepeteia is recognition, and a change from blindness to sight. Together these actions, when imitated, may provoke pity and fear, thus bringing about the catharsis of these emotions which is tragedy’s object.
–adapted from Poetics by Aristotle