John Psathas could be content resting on the laurels of an illustrious career that has made him one of the most significant artists of the Greek diaspora. A composer easily transcending categorisations, he blends styles with remarkable ease, creating cinematic soundscapes in which classical music is infused with an eclectic mix of modern elements. But his latest work is his most ambitious yet. Aptly named No Man’s Land, it is an intense musical and visual experience, created in commemoration of the First World War.
But I had in front of me the dead man, the dead French soldier, and how I would have liked him to have raised his hand, I would have shaken his hand and we would have been the best of friends. – German soldier
The project is both musical and visual. In the concerts, a live band interacts with musicians appearing on screen, in a film (directed by Jasmine Millet) that also presents archival footage, juxtaposed with footage filmed on location at the Western, Eastern and Mediterranean fronts. The result is powerful and moving, bringing forward a simple and essential idea of compassion and humanity that transcends borders and politics.
A first series of concerts was completed in March in New Zealand, resulting in a film that is available online, free for all to see and experience. Speaking to Neos Kosmos, the project’s creator shares his insight.
Why did you decide to create No Man’s Land?
In New Zealand, remembrance of the First World War is a very important annual occasion, and what is particularly important is to remember what happened in Gallipoli. The commemoration of the First World War is often focused almost entirely on the military experience of war, and we tend to focus on our own soldiers, of course, but also on the main opposition that we faced, like Turkey or Germany. What we wanted to do with this project was to focus on other elements, other parts of society, other cultures and nationalities that were affected by the war, and we found in our research that nearly 80 per cent of the world’s population was represented in the war. There were soldiers from Mali, Senegal and India – and of course, from Germany and France and New Zealand and Britain. But the way it tends to be remembered is a kind of ‘white man’s war’.
We were trying very hard to create a much more global or pan-national understanding of what happened and to include the experience of women and children during the war, because that is almost never talked about or explored. We very rarely think about or talk about the children of WW1. What did they go through? In Germany, many thousands of children died of starvation.
The thing that disturbs me the most about how military events are remembered is the idea of heroism and sacrifice, suggesting that it’s okay to have these conflicts. Those things exist, of course, but what we should be really talking about is the horror and the waste of life and the destruction. It should be an entirely negative discussion when we remember war, because the only thing that is true about all wars is that it’s horrible.
How has the audience’s reaction been so far?
When we finished the first series of live concerts here in New Zealand, in March, I got extremely powerful, positive responses from people in the audience. Many wrote to me afterwards, saying that they were overwhelmed by the emotional experience of the project.
That was the one gamble in the whole project: how strong an experience would the outcome be for audiences. Some people would say “I loved the first half of it and hated the second half”, or say the complete opposite. We just had the entire range of reactions. But the one thing that we haven’t got yet was someone saying “I was completely unmoved”.
We very much wanted to make it a non-English-biased result. This is why in the film and the performances, when people are singing, they are singing in their native languages and we don’t translate it. We don’t make it English-centric. The audience for us was supposed to be a universal one – any age, any culture, any nationality; also, musically it was intended to cross those barriers.
How did you manage to get all these musicians from different backgrounds working together?
The best people to bring together in groups and collaborate are musicians, because musicians don’t need to speak the same language. We brought together a tabla player from Pakistan, a bendir player from Iran and a djembe player from Senegal and we were going to film them on location in France. They turned up, they didn’t know each other, they did not share a common language, but as soon as they got their instruments out, there was no stopping them. They were basically friends and then became brothers in a space of 24 hours. It’s an incredible thing that music does; it immediately crosses all the boundaries, gender, age, ethnicity, religion – it crosses everything. That’s why I feel so fortunate that my life has been music, because it enabled me to see that there is a way of human beings being together very quickly in a very natural true way through music. Most people don’t suspect it’s possible.
How was the process of creating such a large-scale work of art?
Making the film was quite moving. It all started with music. I wrote the entire musical score and then delivered it to a team that was to direct and produce the film. The filmmakers were not only creating a narrative that had to make some kind of sense to an audience, but they were also responding, very emotionally, to sounds that they were hearing, as they developed that narrative. We were doing research, we visited these locations and we were moved, we would be crying, talking to descendants. All of this kind of raw emotion went into the work.
We filmed on the locations where some of the most ferocious battles were taking place a hundred years ago. These are locations near borders within Europe. What happens now is that you can drive across these borders and not know that you had gone from one country to another. That’s an incredible thing. This is why the European Union – which is now definitely going through a very difficult time – is a very important idea in human history.
What does the notion of a ‘national identity’ mean to you?
I’m a Greek who grew up in New Zealand. One of the most interesting things about being the child of immigrants is that I feel neither fully Greek nor fully Kiwi; I feel a little bit lost because of that, but I feel mostly very free from having to think of myself in these terms and maybe that means that I’m more open. I don’t really feel that I have long-standing roots anywhere, I’m a free floating citizen of somewhere on the planet. I value ethnicity and unique culture very highly; it’s what makes the planet a very rich place. But the idea of nationalism is quite dangerous. We can see now the way it is exploited and manipulated increasingly as we go into harder times. It becomes a very volatile and dangerous element of society and culture. A part of me really fears nationalism, because of what it can turn into.
Has your Greek background influenced your work?
My Greek cultural background has been a big factor of my success, here in New Zealand. It has given me a desire for a kind of intensity. When I was a student, I played for almost a decade for a Greek band here in Wellington. I would play at weddings and christenings and taverna evenings. And usually in these things the band has to start playing a particular zeibekiko or something and everybody’s up dancing. Coming back to university for my classes, I would be writing music that was to be played in your typical classical music scenario, in which the audience has to be silent and clap politely at the end and everybody goes home and doesn’t talk about it afterwards. It’s the kind of polar opposite to the Greek experience of simple community music-making and the intensity with which that can happen. What I think I have done in my own journey is to marry these two things, the educated, sophisticated upbringing with the very raw, visceral, communal sharing of music that you don’t have to be a music specialist to understand.
How has this project affected you personally?
It aged me. To me it’s probably the biggest milestone of my life. It is by far the biggest, most complicated project that I would ever want to be a part of. I could stop writing music now and I could feel that I have really done something, that I have brought something of value and meaning into the world. I have managed to do that in my lifetime. But what I also learned is the liberation of letting go of ownership. The normal journey of a composer is to really think about oneself a lot and one’s work. I don’t think that this is my work anymore. There were more than 300 people – half of them musicians – involved and I think that I’m one of the few people left now with the project. I don’t feel like I have any kind of ownership over it, I’m the custodian. That’s a good thing. It deals a big blow to your ego in a very positive way.
I’m the guardian of an enormous amount of goodwill and love and compassion and empathy and it’s my duty to make the most of getting this out there in the world and sharing it with as many people as possible.
So, what’s next for No Man’s Land?
The next step is to take the live show overseas, probably to Europe, because the theme is mostly relevant there. After all, four out of the seven musicians on stage are from Europe – three Greeks and one Polish. We’ve also started entering the film into film festivals and it looks that we might get some things happening soon. The ANZAC commemoration period runs till November 2018. I think that that’s the life cycle of the live show and from then on it will only exist online.
For more information – and to see the No Man’s Land film – visit www.nomanslandproject.org