Step across this line. And this one. And this. And….

I have been on a journey where no passport control is necessary and the only check points encountered are bright surges of pleasure alerting me to the gorgeous richness of life through which I’m being propelled. I have been around the world in a few hours and understood the intentions of people who speak in alien tongues.

I have watched a Dutch actor imitate, in Dutch, the cranky German teacher he once had. As he stood at the front of the room, spluttering and railing I, with all the others in the audience, become the oppressed, long-suffering, resentful student who will never forget having to endure such awfulness.

I have felt the stark, penetrating thrill of violin strings, quivering under the guidance of a powerful, merciless bow to express Bartok’s composition of old Hungarian folksongs. At the end of this solo piece, my cheeks are stuck to my teeth, my mouth is dry – I have temporarily forgotten how to swallow.

I have laughed at cutting ironies about American hegemony told in the verse of a Libyan poet. I have seen tattoos, poverty and ugliness made achingly poignant through a beautiful photo-essay. Bang Bang. I have been startled out of complacent judgements to see things anew.

I have learned the word ‘psittacophile’ and, through a recited short story, glimpsed the troubled soul of one such lover of parrots. I have felt the Tunisian sun in the warm, lyrical sound of Anouar Brahem playing the lute accompanied by a clarinetist and a percussionist. Their melodies caressed the hair on my skin the way a breeze does the grass on the belly of the earth. Their teasing, touching tones lapped at my ears as the cool sea does at hot feet: releasing, reviving.

I have been to the streets of Accra and, thanks to some evocative prose, smelled groundnuts on the breath of policemen who practice a justice as arbitrary as dice throwing. I have sensed the anguish of Palestinians and heard the urgency of their case through the glinting, blade-sharp lyrics of rap group Dam. I have yelled for peace in Palestine, while the thud of a heavy base pounded so loudly in my chest it almost erased my own heartbeat.

I have spent an evening at the Border Crossing Festival.

During the course of the first night’s programme I moved seamlessly across all these mediums, subjects and styles – spurred on by what can only be described as passion. The passion of the artists, expressed through their various prodigious talents. Such performances make you realize that sometimes no translation is necessary. It is enough to grasp and enter the spirit of the moment. It is enough to open your mind and step across that line – of language, belief, unfamiliarity, whatever. One small step, and the divide is momentarily invisible.