{"id":302846,"date":"2024-05-27T19:03:27","date_gmt":"2024-05-27T23:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=302846"},"modified":"2024-05-27T19:03:27","modified_gmt":"2024-05-27T23:03:27","slug":"alexis-diaz-pimienta-demiurge-and-tightrope-walker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/culture\/alexis-diaz-pimienta-demiurge-and-tightrope-walker\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexis D\u00edaz-Pimienta, demiurge and tightrope walker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Teenagers, sitting for more than two hours, without their cell phones and barely able to talk to each other. That was the challenging audience at the recording of the new episode of <\/span>Aprendemos juntos <\/span><\/i>(We Learn Together), from which Alexis D\u00edaz-Pimienta elicited \u201cwhat\u2019s cool\u201d from Madrid, a roar of applause and even very lively participation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alexis explained why we are all improvisers and how language is the first game we know \u2014 said by someone who, at only 5 years old, after having listened to his father a lot, recited his first rhymes. He spoke of the psychic and even physical effects of the pleasure produced by the music of words; while he successfully emerged, time and again, gracefully, from the labyrinths of the language, or managed to reach the other end of a tightrope strung by him from the first word, in real time, in front of everyone\u2019s eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aprendemos juntos<\/span><\/i>, a project of the Spanish bank BBVA, is presented as \u201cthe loudspeaker of the most brilliant minds,\u201d with admiration for those who \u201cdedicate themselves to teaching and light the flame of discovery.\u201d In the invitation, the organizers described the Cuban as follows: \u201cConsidered the best improviser in the world, the greatest current authority in improvised poetry, D\u00edaz has written more than 50 titles (essay, novel, short story, poetry, and children\u2019s and youth literature) and has toured theaters in more than thirty countries on five continents, sharing stages with artists such as Silvio Rodr\u00edguez, Joaqu\u00edn Sabina, Omara Portuondo and Compay Segundo, among many others.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMany others\u201d includes collaborations with Jorge Drexler, Juanes (in <\/span>Vida cotidiana,<\/i><\/b>\u00a0an album that won a Latin Grammy<\/b><\/a>), Julieta Venegas, Natalia Lafourcade\u2026 But Alexis has not only had famous students and collaborators: thanks to his good offices as an educator, the flame of the <\/span>d\u00e9cima<\/span><\/i> has been ignited in thousands of people through the Pimienta Method or the inspiration that he represents on stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since 2016, <\/span>OnCuba<\/b> has been lucky enough to <\/span>count him among its columnists <\/b><\/a>\u00a0\u2014 in <\/span>d\u00e9cimas<\/span><\/i>, it couldn\u2019t be otherwise. Taking advantage of the proximity, we asked him to tell us about the <\/span>Intelligent Reggaeton<\/span><\/a> course of his online academy and, of course, about the participation in <\/span>Aprendemos juntos,<\/span><\/i> an endeavor recognized by the United Nations and which, combined with different digital platforms, accumulates several million views since its emergence.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Alexis D\u00edaz-Pimienta at the recording of the program, on May 21, 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Aprendemos juntos.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aprendemos juntos seeks to promote education and alternatives for a quality life. How is that purpose connected to improvisation?<\/b><\/p>\n

Poetic improvisation in any strophic form and any style, whether sung or spoken, is inextricably linked to learning processes and cognitive growth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Every exercise of improvisation generates linguistic, memorial and expressive growth, therefore, learning to improvise and practicing improvisation in any form is beneficial, in every sense.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I have been dedicated to teaching poetic improvisation for many years, in Cuba, Spain, and many other countries. I have even been able to take my methodology for teaching improvisation to other languages, such as Catalan, Mallorcan, Portuguese or Italian. In all cases, children and adults acquire communication skills and enhance their creativity through language. When I participated in the 16th Congress of the Royal Academy of Language, which took place in Puerto Rico, my presentation was titled \u201cPoetic improvisation as a pedagogical tool.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I think that our schools greatly waste the possibilities of improvising verses, at all levels. Luckily, there are always alternative spaces and I have created many myself to demonstrate it: a chair at the University of the Arts in Havana, a national project of improvisation schools, in Cuba, an experimental school in the Alpujarra of Granada, and an online academy specialized in improvisation and oral arts: my <\/span>Academia Oralitura<\/b><\/a>. And from these spaces, I have trained thousands of people to apply improvisation techniques in any art: written literature, song, theater, journalism, and even cinema.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I have students who have developed their professional careers in disciplines other than improvisation, but applying techniques that they learned with me: students who are singer-songwriters, rappers, writers, editors, theater actors, filmmakers, or educators, and who apply games and exercises of the Pimienta Method for their creations and personal growth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is directly linked to the objectives of the <\/span>Aprendemos juntos<\/span><\/i> program. And, of course, all these people who improvise and teach or learn to improvise and improve their quality of life as speakers, as communicators, as creative. Quality of life + education + improvisation is a sum that tends to infinity.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the Pimienta Method and how can it influence those who approach it?<\/b><\/p>\n

The Pimienta Method is 100% playful. Following the teachings of Rodari and Huizinga, I have converted all the sections of my book <\/span>Teor\u00eda de la improvisaci\u00f3n po\u00e9tica<\/span><\/i>, an essay that probes the internal mechanisms that improvisers use, in games so that, in a relaxed and effective way, students enhance their creative possibilities with language.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Pimienta Method has given incredible results in all the schools and workshops that I have set up, both in Cuba and in Spain. And currently, it is the method used in almost all schools of poetic improvisation that have opened in Latin America: in Chile, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Argentina, and even in Brazil, in Portuguese.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Playing with language, with rhyme, synonymy, meter, prosody, verses, stanzas, and the techniques specific to each of the manifestations of improvisation, we create new worlds. We played at being poets and we ended up being poets.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Alexis D\u00edaz-Pimienta at the recording of the program, on May 21, 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Aprendemos juntos.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What is Academia Oralitura?<\/b><\/p>\n

Academia Oralitura is my biggest project, the first online academy specialized in improvisation and other oral arts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We have been bringing this type of teachings around the world for more than a decade. Based in Almer\u00eda, we have taught face-to-face courses in many cities in Spain, such as Madrid, C\u00e1diz, or Seville, but the essence of our academy is online teaching. In such a way that we have had a global reach, with students from more than 30 countries and truly impressive figures: more than 4,000 students have passed through our academy, especially from the time of the pandemic to date.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of its attractions, in addition to the subjects, is the teaching staff. In each of the disciplines we teach, we have been able to count on top-level teachers. In the song, for example, great artists such as Jorge Drexler, Juanes, Javier Ruibal, Andr\u00e9s Calamaro, Gema Corredera, Natalia Lafourcade, Julieta Venegas, Marwan, Nano Stern, Pala and a long etc. have been teachers at our academy. In the theatrical Impro, Omar Argentino. In classical theater in verse, Gabriel Garbizu. In poetry and palindrome, Pedro Poitevin. In stage oral narration, Pep Bruno or H\u00e9ctor Uri\u00e9n. All big names.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, our academy has become an online university specialized in oral arts, which is attended, systematically and recurrently, by students from all over the world to meet and learn with the best in each discipline. And with other students interested in these subjects. They are poetry and language geeks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Uma publica\u00e7\u00e3o compartilhada por Academia Oralitura (@academiaoralitura)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n