Love&Democracy: A sound installation in four parts PART 1: Love your Neighborhood 07.07.23 in Berlin, Lettrétage

The theme of "Love&Democracy" stems from the necessity of our times. They are a silent duo. Without a love of place and neighbors, one cannot truly have a democracy, and without treating each other fairly—democratically—there can be no real love. The German Jurist and politician, Lore Maria Peschel-Gutzei said during an interview, “Democracy is the most difficult form of government. One must care enough to struggle and respect and negotiate.” Love and democracy are vital, but both can be unfathomably complex.

The four categories of the sound installation grew from ideas Paul Brody developed while writing a radio feature about the German constitution, Grundgesetzland. Each section follows an operatic structure, with street interviews about the subject matter functioning as recitative and the voices of the poets forming the arias. This ever-growing initiative so far includes the poets and writers: Marica Bodrožić, Angélica Freitas, Daniel Kahn, Gregor Dotzauer, Uljana Wolf, Tomaz Venclova, Tom Sleigh, Isaac Goodman, Gregor Hens, Ellen Hinsey, Marina Frenk, Tom Drury, Jan Wagner, Tom Bresemann, and more.

Love&Democracy is also inspired by a project built around the poems of Rose Auslaender, where Brody used her works in three different ways: The poem as spoken word, accompanied by music composed around the speaker’s voice; the poem as Sprechgesang (speaksinging, which is a mixture of the two as used by Berg and Schoenberg and 20’s style cabaret); and the poem set to song.