Andrei Hadanovich: “Thoughts aloud” is a tasteful, unusual, and unexpected format broadening

photo by Uladzimir Baradzenak http://vk.com/echomanphoto

The poet and translator didn’t become one of the project’s heroes, but after the invitation to the shooting he got interested and “got hooked” on interdisciplinary videos.

The project that involved 100 monologues of Belarus’ intellectuals started in autumn of 2012. Philosophers, poets, historians, artists, culture scientists, human rights activists, and civil society activists shared their thoughts with the audience.

The presenter of the social occasion that finished the global project was Andrei Hadanovich, a poet and translator, the head of the Belarusian PEN centre. He didn’t participate in the project himself, so by request of the “EuroBelarus” Information Service he shares his thoughts on “Thoughts aloud” through our webpage.

I liked the project “Thoughts aloud” even though I refused to take part in it. When I got an invitation, I got interested and started watching it. Soon I got hooked on these videos in YouTube.

I should say that “Thoughts aloud” is a kind of tasteful, unusual, and unexpected format broadening. We are used to listening either to oral speeches at conferences, at round tables, and at book presentations or we are used to reading letters, letters, and letters. This project seems to be in contradiction to what Vital Ryzhkou did a few years ago at “Budz’ma” – “Black-and-white poems” that also lasted for 2-3 minutes without any backing dancers in short skirts and without cabaret. A poet reads poems; and hundreds or, even, thousands people still look at it. This format might prove the poetry or in our case thinking is the modern actual phenomenon. People around us, our colleagues are not merely thinking, but also want to be heard and have something to say.

100 videos, 100 ways of thinking, 101 stories together with the creator of the project – the project turned out to be interdisciplinary. Of course, being a literature-centric person I started from my colleagues – poets, prose writers, translators, but then I started to watch the ones about philosophers, sociologists, etc. from different spheres, both in Russian and in Belarusan. Perhaps, this is a good thing that the project didn’t have any limitations.

And it is also understandable that there is slight sadness when geniuses do not comply with the time they are living in. It seems that Valiantsin Akudovich or Uladzimir Arlou or many others should be presented before the broader public.  Of course, Sviatlana Alexievich is a media person and has much more attendance; even more people watched videos with Sviatlana Kalinkina. But on the other hand, there are some unique things that shouldn’t be addressed to a broad public – such as thoughts of Ihar Babkou or Mihas Bajaryn. At the same time, all Internet-surfers have equal chances to get hooked on these videos; so why not? I think this is useful, and it’s good that now you can get it at one CD. It is also important that in today’s reality we demonstrated solidarity. If you want people to get interested in your thoughts, push the button to share the video in social networks so that to spread videos with the most interesting thoughts.