Repetition to get the point through

m still wondering what kind of things I wish to share on my blog.

One issue that really engages me is the concept of the transcultural. I myself can gladly identify myself of being a transcultural product in itself:

Take a look at my name - my name hides the fact that I am British, emphasizes my Spanish descent, although conceals my family coming from a Spanish-Algerian diaspora dating back to the 18 th century, meaning that they were French, technically speaking.

And my first name, being French, didn´t really help my English classes in Ullevål Skole in 1975, where I was forced to learn English. I clearly remember having to learn "This is a rabbit in a tent" at the age of 8.

English happened to be my maternal language, although transmitted through a Norwegian mother! ( Her mother grew up in United States ) My father and mother spoke French together, but English to us children when we lived near Brighton.

My father often spoke of his childhood in Oran, Algeria, where he grew up with an English mother and a Spanish father, they had met while he was a student i Birmingham, and after World War II settled in Algeria, to leave when things became critical due to de Gaulle and the war.

My mother also has an interesting background, being the daughter of an engineer at Oslo Lysverker and a pianoteacher, daughter of a bridge engineer who found work in Ohio, USA.

We are related to the Lyche family of Drammen, who founded what today is called the Lyche pavillion. We also have relatives who took part in Stortinget.

Growing up between Oslo, United Kingdom, Ireland and France was quite a complicated affair.

My father, University professor of French, finally settled in Paris, while my mother stayed in Oslo.

I still keep travelling, in my liminality.

So if I am to find some kind of category to feel comfortable in, I suggest :

Transcultural Product

I can not be separated from my body, which has absorbed all forms it has passed through. I can not accept a concept of my culture being homogenic, because it is not, and will never be.

Here are some good points on transculturality to proceed from:

"Conceptions of transculturality aims for a multi-meshed and inclusive, not separatist and exclusive, understanding og culture"

"Conceptions of culture are operative concepts. Our understanding of culture is an active factor in our cultural life."...

"...the individuals discovery and acceptance of their transcultural constitution is a condition for coming to terms with societal transculturality"

(Featherstone and Lash 1999)

So should I accept my transculturality? How to?

I think my plan was to escape an academic career and be an artist, it seemed the safest thing , after all. Although many experiences of my meeting with institutions like todays KHIO taught me that I was not interesting, not worth including. Despite my talents and efforts, including the hardship of being me in Norwegian Society, in-between everything, actually led me to a form of desolution. I had the luck to be invited to work with Verdensteatret, I was touring Norway and Europe and Le Monde even published my photo from our production. But it didn´t matter. I was still not interesting enough for the local introspective Norwegian establishment.

Well , keep your socks up, as my father says, you won´t do away with a Campos like that! I kept going, as I always do. You can´t beat generations of effort and cultural capital of our calibre just like that. Descending from Martin Luthers sister , we didn´t start FROM THE BOTTOM. Brahms, Bach and Chopin, piano lessons at Barrath-Due didn´t teach me to become an underdog. Studying Flamenco, I quickly learnt that Spanish dance was ok to a certain point. Circus. Entertainment. Quick movements. Raised arms. Authority.

All these stories, all these images, all these ideas keep coming to me. Time is too short. There is no time to loose. I shall go on and on from here. I shall still keep going on. I shall. I am. But I am not dancing any longer for you all. If I dance, it will be as a Tokyo Senorita. Sayonara babe.

I can accept my transculturality, if the Norwegian Society can.

I wish I was Jewish. Then I suppose things would work better perhaps.

I have come to the belief that identity constantly needs to be defined, promoted, defended.

Well, my Lutheran/Methodist/Catholic /Muslim family, what is there to do about all this?

What will our children do in this melting pot of crossing paths?