Byron Au Yong

Big BANG

2011-10-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a photo collage from I AM NOT A TERRORIST, a 3+ hour performance where I played drums at the entrance to the Velocity Dance Center's Big BANG Benefit celebration of Seattle dance on September 24, 2011.

Kidnapping Water reflections

2011-09-25T15:01:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, Betsy Baeskens, Stuart McLeod and I performed excerpts from Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas for the Seattle Symphony Day of Music. Betsy sang 14 Bottled Operas in six sections while Stuart and I played the water with bamboo poles, plastic bags, gongs, plastic bottles, crotales and bamboo buzzers. Here's our set list:

Taking Time
Red Drops / Ride a Cloud / Floating
Droplets / Translucence / Image / Growing
Disease-Love / Yellow Polka Dot / Swim Swim Swim
Bounce / Withered Lilac
Summer Tea

We performed in the Garden of Remembrance. This public memorial designed by Robert Murase includes reflecting pools and two waterfalls amidst black granite slabs carved with the names of almost 8,000 war veterans. Our set ended with Summer Tea (lyrics by Carola Luther).

Summer Tea
未濟 Wèi Jì |¦|¦|¦

Three months now
I’ve been prepared.
House is painted.
Attic aired.
Suitcase ready.
Words in order.
Got my ticket
and my visa.

While I wait
I dust the corners sweep the floor,
check the ledger, all is sorted.
All’s in order.

A bowl of water for my sister.
A pile of salt for my brother.
And for my daughter
all the seeds:
onion garlic
rose and thyme
cotton broad bean
orange lime
oats and barley
pear and pea
mushroom mulberry.

Story written.
Fire laid.
Letters burnt.
Debts are paid.
Apples dried. Horses fed.
Sail mended. Big book read.

A bowl of water for my sister.
A pile of salt for my brother.
And for my daughter
all the seeds:
onion garlic
rose and thyme
cotton broad bean
orange lime
oats and barley
pear and pea
mushroom mulberry.
Summer, summer tea.

Betsy sent me these reflections about the performance:

A particularly poignant moment was when we were doing Summer Tea. I of course loved the listing of the kinds of seeds to be given to the daughter; as I was preparing that piece, I had familiar twinges of regret over not having had more children, including a daughter. But as I was singing, a little girl I teach from NWGC (Northwest Girlchoir) came into my line of vision. She was rapt, watching you and Stuart, and also showing the astonishment only a young child can when confronted with the impossible image of their teacher somewhere other than the classroom. It made me realize that daughters, and families, can come in many forms, and we can collect and pass seeds to them in many ways. It was powerful, especially as you had said before the performance that you wanted Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas to be not only for people now but for future generations.

Arts Innovation Workshop + Forum

2011-09-24T15:58:00.000-07:00

The Wallace Foundation & Washington State Arts Commission continue to offer free Arts Participation Leadership Initiative learning events. This time, we focus on innovation with guest Richard Evans. As president of EmcArts, Richard has designed the Innovation Lab for the Performing Arts, the New Pathways for the Arts Initiative, plus the Innovation Lab for Museums launching this fall. Participants will generate new approaches to consider for their organizations. Check out Richard's paper Innovate to Thrive.

03 October 2011
McCaw Hall, Seattle Center

Forum (10am-noon) Innovation: Connecting to a New Era of Arts Participation
Workshop (1:30-4pm) The Roots of Innovation

Registration required for these free learning events.

Big BANG Benefit

2011-09-17T13:26:00.000-07:00

Next Saturday, I join 30+ performers in a 3+ hour performance to celebrate the talent and imagination of Seattle's dance scene. The Big BANG Remix is part of a weekend of events to benefit Velocity Dance Center.

Here are some of the performers: Adam Sekuler, Haruko Nishimura, Byron Au Yong, Belle Wolf, Ezra Dickinson, Kate Wallich, Kelly Sullivan, Rosa Vissers, Karn Junkinsmith, zoe|juniper, Serge Gubelman, Stimulate Dance, Anna-lizette Conner, Douglas Ridings, Karin Stevens & Craig van den Bosch, David Wolbrecht, Eric Pitsenbarger, Markeith Wiley, Colleen McNeary, Jenna Bean Veatch, Lou Karsen & Stefanie Karlin, Maya Soto, Kristen Tslatslos, Rachel Grant, Amy Johnson, Erica Badgeley, Molly Sides & Vanessa DeWolf.

24 September 2011, 8pm
Big BANG Remix Party
Velocity Dance Center
$10

Day of Music

2011-09-11T10:45:00.000-07:00

Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas appears at the Seattle Symphony’s Day of Music. Soprano Betsy Baeskens performs with percussionists Byron Au Yong and Stuart McLeod in the fountains in the Garden of Remembrance outside Benaroya Hall. They are part of the 40+ musical groups invited to perform in seven locations as part of this community-wide celebration of Seattle music as well as welcome for conductor Ludovic Morlot.

Sunday, 18 September 2011, 12:45-1:15pm

Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas

Seattle Symphony Day of Music

2nd Ave & University St

Benaroya Hall, Seattle

FREE

NewMusicBox Taiko

2011-08-25T16:46:00.000-07:00

Kenny Endo Taiko Ensemble

NewMusicBox has published an article I wrote about the 2011 North American Taiko Conference at Stanford University. Along with a conference overview and a brief history of kumi-daiko, I focus on new music created for taiko.

Here's an excerpt:

Two quotes that continue to resonate with me are “innovation is tradition” spoken by numerous people throughout the conference, and “work is both a verb and a noun” spoken by Stephen Sano, professor and chair of the department of music at Stanford University. Considering work as both a process and a product, as a way for new music to continually rearrange for multiple performance contexts, provides a sustainable approach that the taiko community, even though nascent, offers to musical groups in America and beyond.

Check out the article at NewMusicBox.

New Music for Taiko Video

2011-08-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

Thinking about new music for taiko, Chad Williams and I made this brief informational video while we were at the 2011 North American Taiko Conference at Stanford University from August 18-21. Included are thoughts from:

Kenny Endo (Taiko Center of the Pacific, Hawai’i)
George Abe (founding member of Kinnara Taiko, Los Angeles)
Roy and PJ Hirabayashi (directors emeritus of San Jose Taiko)
Yoshihiko Miyamoto (president of Miyamoto Unosuke Shoten, Tokyo)
Masato Baba (artistic director of TAIKOPROJECT, member of On Ensemble, Los Angeles)
Michelle Fujii (artistic director of Portland Taiko)

Chad and I interviewed many folks we were not able to include in this short video. There are many other taiko musicians who create new work. Perhaps we can make more videos?

What would you like to hear about generating new work for taiko?

Floppy Bunny Ears

2011-08-15T17:24:00.000-07:00

As a composer, I often find myself sitting in concert halls with audiences of a dozen people or less. The audience size does not necessarily reflect the quality of the performance or accessibility of the music. Rather I feel it has to do with the perceived image of post-classical music as irrelevant.

Rather than bemoan the lack of attendance, how about if being one of the intrepid few in the audience became a bragging right? Concerts could be framed as an escape from the everyday where refreshing audio adventures crack open the surface of sound to delve deep into a listener's consciousness. Consider the repertoire of a new music concert as Twilight Zone episode after Twilight Zone episode. Programs that encourage surprise and investigation are audience favorites.

Help already-existing audience leaders attract their friends to these terrifying unknown performances of:

shouting contests in made-up languages
fluorescent lights scraping on electric guitars
double string quartets playing slowly shifting drones
and floppy bunny ears

Now, doesn't that sound fun?

24 City

2011-07-07T04:46:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, one scene makes an entire show click. In 24 City, this moment for me was when a buyer for wealthy ladies in Chengdu, China acknowledges that she will survive because she is the daughter of factory workers. Born in the 1980s, Zhao Tao is one of the final characters we meet in this poetic take on how China is shifting.

24 City focuses on stories from three generations of residents in an area formerly known as Factory 420. In a subtle mix of documentary and fiction film-making, director Jia Zhang-ke handles his subjects carefully, akin to a portrait artist, focusing on memories of migration and the lines around the lips. Quotes from Irish writer W.B. Yeats along with music from Chinese red songs, orchestral strings and Japanese enka add to this peculiar yet strangely comforting film about the transition of an aeronautical factory into a luxury high-rise complex.

As I watched the film, I thought of the stories buildings contain. Once these places are demolished, do memories become rubble to be swept away?

Here's the trailer...

Circle of Vths Decoder

2011-07-03T04:13:00.000-07:00

mDecks has created the amazing Circle of Vths Decoder. This interactive page shows circle of fifths relationships for multiple scales. Along with diatonic scales and medieval modes, you can decode:

Messiaen modes
Indian ragas
Blues scales
and more...

If you want to see structural harmonic relationships using either keys or function (letter names or roman numerals), check out this Circle of Vths Decoder. I will use this graphic tool to build chords idiomatic to certain harmonies + to spur intriguing modulations.

National Jukebox

2011-07-02T11:46:00.000-07:00

Do you like Tin Pan Alley? Ragtime? Victrola 78s?

The U.S. Library of Congress now offers historic recordings free to the public online at the National Jukebox.

You can even make and share playlists. I found four recordings of Chinese opera recorded in Philadelphia in 1903 (!)

Thoughts from RADAR L.A.

2011-07-01T13:54:00.000-07:00

From 14-19 June 2011, REDCAT, Under the Radar Festival, Center Theatre Group and Theatre Communications Group hosted 15 contemporary performances in Los Angeles. I attended nine of the shows from RADAR L.A. and give brief impressions from three:

Neva | Teatro en el Blanco
In this potent work set during Bloody Sunday (1905), three actors question the value of theater on a small platform lit by a heat lamp. The ending rant about the bourgeoisie audience had the supertitles flip so fast I held my breath. In a panel at the RADAR L.A. Symposium, director Guillermo Calderon said that he strives for laughter that starts in the stomach and ends in the brain.

State of Incarceration | Los Angeles Poverty Department (LADP)
This installation/public education/performance caused some audience members to walk out and others to weep. I was in the latter category. Towards the end of the show, the performers cleaned the bunks with rags. I was stunned by this ritual of futility and dignity.

Amarillo | Teatro Linea de Sombra
Text, dance + projections = a performance result of NAFTA focusing on a man lost when trying to cross the U.S./Mexico border. I marvel at his athleticism scaling the wall of a theater but never escaping. Plastic water bottled are lit by flashlights and in the end sand falls.

3Seasons reSet

2011-06-24T02:59:00.000-07:00

Last night, a loud, gutter-gurgling rain kept me awake. Is it too much to ask for sun in late June? Farmer Brendan planted only six tomato plants leaving the other six in pots saying that it's not worth having stunted plants with green tomatos later this season. I smell the damp earth and think of 3Seasons reSet playing tonight and tomorrow at Intiman Theatre in Seattle.

Kim & Adam Bamberg: LaViePhoto.com

3Seasons premiered at On the Boards in January 2010. Since then, choreographer Olivier Wevers and his company Whim W'Him have refined their repertoire with works such as Monster. Returning to 3Seasons (an adaptation of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons), I notice that Olivier has a greater attentiveness to details. Props are more carefully placed, movements are more precise and transitions are more deliberate. For the music, I have refined the instrumentation to violin + soundtrack. Crowding the performance with extraneous instruments is like planting too many tomatos.

Victoria Brown wrote a perceptive:

... the music has undergone the greatest change. In the present iteration of 3Seasons, only Autumn employs the new music of Byron, which has been both drawn in and expanded. Instead of violin, percussion, toy piano and electronic sounds, the composition is now pared down to a single violin heard against a city soundscape of cars and an electronic hum.

In performance the violin will be played by much the praised and prized Michael Jinsoo Lim (Pacific Northwest Ballet concertmaster and co-founder of the Corigliano Quartet). The first movement of Byron’s new Autumn has a jumbled sound. Vivaldi comes in only in snatches, as real music and… as a cell phone ring tone. It’s a 21st century landscape, of timid trust in an unimaginable future warring against barely suppressed chaos and despair. There is, as Byron says, a clear sense of something missing.

Yet for me at least, this apprehension of loss changes as the season unrolls. Last week, after re-observing his bleak take on the Vivaldi Winter (that ends his ballet), I said to Olivier, “This sure doesn’t finish on any note of redemption, does it?" to which he assented. But yesterday, watching the season that preceeds it, I felt an unexpectedly different note in Autumn’s final movement.

By this time, the clutter and static of the earlier sections of Byron’s soundscape are burned away. The violin plays on alone, its sound harsh, seer, but purified, clean. As if, out of the dross that we’ve made from our world, one clear, authentic, silver voice has been refined—or might be. Perhaps this line of music represents another chance for the human race, a sounder basis for a better, more sustainable and earth-centric future. Whether we can save ourselves and our world, or if the centuries to come hold only the peace of cessation, is still, of course, obscure and will remain so well beyond our time. I might be talking through my hat, but ever optomistic, I asked Byron after rehearsal, “Is Autumn maybe where hope creeps into 3Seasons?”

His answer was a broad, if enigmatic, grin.

Read more of Victoria's insightful thoughts about the revised 3Seasons with photos from La Vie Photography at Whim W'Him's blog.

3Seasons ReSet

2011-06-07T14:16:00.000-07:00

It's not too late to get tickets for Whim W'Him's ReSet:

Friday, 24 June 2011, 8PM
Saturday, 25 June 2011, 8PM

Intiman Theatre
201 Mercer Street
Seattle WA 98109

I compose new Autumn music for 3Seasons -- a work inspired by Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons -- to be performed by violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim + soundtrack. Along with choreography by Olivier Wevers, performances by Whim W'Him's dancers, costumes by Michael Cepress and lighting by Michael Mazolla, 3Seasons includes new cardboard sets by Casey Curran.

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Chives

2011-06-02T05:04:00.000-07:00

My mind wanders as I take a break in the vegetable patch. I am stuck trying to finish music for 3Seasons.

Composer John Adams recently said in his commencement speech for Julliard:

... by choosing a life in the arts you've set yourselves apart... from a nation that has become such a hostage to distraction that it can't absorb a single complex thought without having it reduced to a sound byte.

He goes on to say that the arts are "utterly useless." This herb box could be useless as well, yet the flowering chives and thick sage leaves bring me outside where waving neighbors bicycle along saying that they love the garden. I feel the hesitant Seattle sun mixed with rain sprinkle an encouraging nod towards me tending the vegetable patch. My mind works through sound bytes and starts to weave sonic textures as I weed and prune, transplant and mulch, water and taste.

Tending edibles finds a parallel with composing music. Both take time, patience and the willingness to let go and be surprised. Adams concludes his commencement speech with a simple tally-ho:

Be bold, be humble, don't mind being difficult, and don't ever feel that what you're doing in this attention-deficit disorder country of ours is marginal or unimportant.

Plants have their own ways of growing. By paying attention to the parsley, sage, rosemary and chives, my time as a composer is renewed where I can return to composing music refreshed and confident.

Engaging Young Adult Audiences

2011-05-24T05:50:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, Wednesday, May 25, there is a Free Forum + Workshops to explore how arts leaders are using new techniques and technologies to cultivate young adult audiences (ages 21-35) for the arts.

FORUM
Wednesday May 25, 10AM-Noon
Nesholm Lecture Hall (SIFF Cinema)
McCaw Hall, Seattle Center
321 Mercer Street
Seattle WA 98109 | Map

Speakers include:

Peter Boal, Pacific Northwest Ballet artistic director (Seattle)
Linda Garrison, The Steppenwolf Theatre marketing director (Chicago)
Jerry Yoshitomi, Meaning Matters consultant (Los Angeles)
Ellen Walker, Pacific Northwest Ballet marketing director (Seattle)

WORKSHOPS
Share challenges and hone your methods of reaching young adult audiences in a small discussion format. Workshops follow the May 25th Forum: the first from 1-3PM, the second from 3-5PM, both in McCaw Hall.

READINGS
10 Trends of 20-Somethings
by Marian Salzman, President of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR

Who are the Millennials, why do we need them, and how do we engage them?
by Gary Steuer on his blog Arts, Culture and Creative Economy

The Millennials
by Scott Keeter and Paul Taylor, from the Pew Research Center website

Tracking the Generational Shift in Brand Loyalty
by Barry Silverstein, on the Brand Channel website

Arts Participation Leadership Initiative learning events are co-sponsored by The Wallace Foundation and Washington State Arts Commission.

Are you a Millennial? What do you think of the readings above? How do you participate in the arts?

Weird vs. Fantastical

2011-05-20T04:48:00.000-07:00

Live performance offers an opportunity to activate an audience's imagination face-to-face. Yet oftentimes, performance art can confuse and even frustrate audience members. To create a live performance that inspires rather than alienates, I find a helpful distinction between weird and fantastical.

Weird provides a launchpad. Getting to fantastical requires craft. Part of this craft is an understanding of the numerous ways character and narrative seep into an audience's mind and heart.

Because storytelling, a foundation of performance, happens every day in multiple media, it is crucial to consider a broad as well as in-depth knowledge of how audience members participate in the lives of their social network, their superstars and their personal mythology. Stories are told through advertising, created about reality show personalities and performed in movies. Understanding, borrowing and refining the humorous and devastating ways to perform a story transforms weird into fantastical.

Weird verges on lack of experience, insularity or laziness. Fantastical references a cosmos, pushes boundaries and makes the audience breathless.

We Upcycle

2011-05-09T04:07:00.000-07:00

Even though I live in Seattle and have facial hair, this post about "upcycling" is not a plug for dumpster diving. Rather, it is to share my excitement about creativity and sustainability.

Activate your imagination from what you already have to prevent waste with useful items made from what you would normally discard. Unlike recycling, upcycling encourages innovation along with resourcefulness.

For inspiration, I found a fantastic Viennese upcycling site. They are on day 25 of a 30-day challenge to design beautiful objects 30 days in a row. For everyone who sends them a photo of an upcycle project, weupcycle.com will add a day to their challenge.

Today's project includes branches to hang clothes and display shoes.

Collapse

2011-04-28T04:08:00.000-07:00

On my flight from Toronto to Seattle, I watched the documentary Collapse. Airplane seats are a confining space to "enjoy" movies, especially now that seat belts must be strapped whenever one is seated. Have you noticed that the movie selection always includes terrifying and seemingly inappropriate flicks about the world ending?

I chose to watch this documentary not realizing how captivated I would become. Michael Ruppert was an investigative journalist. I was fascinated by his calm urgency and insight into how to survive inevitable revolutions. I was touched by his breakdown in thinking about President Obama. I was heartened to hear that his solutions included growing food and strengthening local networks.

Author Seth Godin recently wrote:

¡Note! Like all revolutions, this is an opportunity, not a solution, not a guarantee. It's an opportunity to poke and experiment and fail and discover dead ends on the way to making a difference. The old economy offered a guarantee -- time plus education plus obedience = stability. The new one, not so much. The new one offers a chance for you to take a chance and make an impact.

I think about Collapse and Godin's call-to-action. Increasingly, the idea of infinite growth promised by advanced capitalism leads to devastation. I am thankful to be in a neighborhood with vegetable gardens surrounded by folks who take pleasure in digging and planting. I listen to my chickens and notice the breeze or birds overhead.

Could the revolution be quiet or will there be riots on Main Street USA?

Banff Arts Centre

2011-03-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

This is the second full day I have been at the Banff Arts Centre as part of the 2011 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab. Already, I have seen three deer: one from our rehearsal room window and the other two walking along the snowy paths. I have definitely been inspired to think differently about Stuck Elevator.

Here's the view from my work area. A long ways from a stuck elevator in the Bronx, I find creativity and generosity with amazing collaborators, fellow theater artists and the support staff. The environment encourages me to expand the story and music in playful and unexpected ways.

Seattle artists help Japan

2011-03-19T06:29:00.000-07:00

I am honored to announce that Seattle artists unite to benefit relief efforts in Japan. Folks who work in a variety of media including painting, drawing, calligraphy, sumi-e, ceramic, jewelry, sculpture, print and more have donated artworks to be displayed at KOBO at HIGO in Seattle's International District. In addition, the Murakami Family, former owners of the Higo Variety Store, will match up to $10,000 in donations raised.

Here's how the benefit sale will work according to organizers Binko Chiong-Bisbee, Etsuko Ichikawa, Elizabeth Jameson, Tommer Peterson and Junko Yamamoto:

This event is offered in the spirit of generosity and trust. Instead of purchasing the artwork, guests will have the opportunity to make a donation in the amount of that "price" directly to the International Red Cross in exchange for the work. Donations can be made by only by credit card or check. (Some employers will match your donations, check your company policies on matching donations.) Everybody wins.

Participating artists as of 19 March 2011 include:
Juan Alonso, Toshi Asai, Byron Au Yong, Peter Bagge, Clare Barboza, Debra Baxter, Jennifer Bennett, Tracy Boyd, Allison Collins, Diem Chau, C.T. Chew, Diane Culhane, Celeste Cooning, Sue Danielson, John Dix, Maiji Fiebig, Julia Freeman, Sean Frego, David French, Tim Girvin, Akiko Graham, Adriana Grant, Lisa Hasegawa, Larry Halvorsen, Robert Hardgrave, Stephanie Hargrave, Stephen Hazel, Linda Hoshide, Etsuko Ichikawa, Elizabeth Jameson, Weston Jandacka, Iskra Johnson, Shizu Enomoto Kirk, Seiko Kobayashi, Alan Lau, Anita Lehmann, Micki Lippe, Sarah Loertscher, Ana Karina Luna, Rozarii Lynch, Rick Mahaffey, Mariko Marrs, Akiko Masker, Anna Mastronardi - Novak, Kevin C. McCarthy, Jim McDermott, Shino Mikami, Mutsuko Mitsui, Naomi Mittet, Saya Moriyasu, Yuki Nakamura, Miho Nakaoka, Kristin Nelson, Haruko Nishimura, Nicholas Nyland, Yuko Otoku, Reid Ozaki, Tommer Peterson, AJ Power, Pamela Pike E Powers, Kathleen Rabel, Maria Grazia Repetto, Ken Ray, Dorothy Rissman, Norie Sato, Chiyo Sanada, Tamae Satsu, June Sekiguchi, Roger Shimomura, Katy Stone, Akio Takamori, Mugi Takei, Maki Tamura, Ken Taya, Diane Tchakirides, Timea Tihanyi, Takuya Tokizawa, Genevieve Tremblay, Mizue Trinidad, Ikuyo Tsunoda, Junichi Tsuneoka, George Tsutakawa (estate), Tomoko Uno, Egypt Urnash, Patti Warashina, Barry Wong, Junko Yamamoto, Herman Yu and Ellen Ziegler

Artists 4 Japan
Art Sale to Benefit Relief Efforts in Japan
Saturday, 26 March 2011, 12-8PM
Sunday, 27 March 2011, 12-5PM

Update: $94,000+ was raised during this event

Portland Musicians help Japan

2011-03-19T06:07:00.000-07:00

Last Monday, when I met with artistic director Michelle Fujii of Portland Taiko, she said that she would speak with PT's community group about how they would like to respond to the recent devastation in Japan. I am excited to announce that in a few days musicians and concerned citizens throughout Portlandia have pulled together to present a Benefit Concert for Japan.

Portland Taiko + Portland State University's Department of Music host this benefit concert for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Performers include:

Portland Taiko
Takohachi
Mexica Tiahui
Mike Barber
Natya Leela Academy
Carla Mann and Jim McGinn
Hanzaburo Araki

Thank You CDs for relief efforts

2011-03-19T05:47:00.000-07:00

For everyone who has contributed to relief efforts for the earthquake/tsunami in Japan, I offer complimentary BreathPlay + Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas compact discs this week.

Please send me a note with a description of your donation to Mercy Corps, the Red Cross or other NGO or non-profit organization + your mailing address by Friday, 25 March 2011. I will put both CDs in the post for you because many of the musicians and artists I work with have been affected by the disaster and I am grateful for your help.

This morning, I received a day-to-day account from shakuhachi musician Christopher Yohmei Blasdel who lives in Tokyo. His writing has many insights that resonate with me such as:

Amongst the logorrhea of commentary on the television, however, there are a few revealing snippets of the tragedy's true scope and what the nation is really going through. The enlightenment comes not from the newscasters, but from the survivors themselves.

A man was interviewed by NHK as he picked through the rubble of his home:
Who are you looking for?
My Father.
His body?
No, not the body, it probably won’t be found, I just want something to remember him by.
被災地の
無情の雪よ
母探し

Hisaichi no
Mujou no yuki yo!
Haha sagashi

The disaster area.
In the heartless snow
A search for a mother.

+

It seemed to me that people in New Orleans looted for mainly two reasons; as an angry reaction against oppression and years of economic and social alienation or as an attempt at survival. The first scenario was demonstrated by people walking into the ruined department stores and grabbing whatever they found, believing they had the inalienable right to take stuff that wasn’t locked or guarded. The second scenario is more understandable; think mothers stealing loaves of bread for their children.

+

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit my knowledge of nuclear power plants comes mostly from watching The Simpsons...

In addition, Yohmei posts photographs of his Tokyo flat the day of the earthquake. Especially poignant is his interaction with a young housewife at the supermarket over the dilemma of buying bottled water when there were only four bottles left on the shelf.

Take a moment this weekend to read this sentient musician's account of the earthquake, tsunami and aftermath in Japan.

I am honored to be his friend and to offer the BreathPlay CD we made together + the Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas CD for all those who have donated to relief efforts. Thank you.

Catastrophe/Bliss

2011-03-17T06:03:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I visited Portlandia. Luckily I was able to hitch a ride with Tonya & Brant + touch base with Michelle & Toru. My friendships deepened during this time partly because of how the earthquake in Japan continues to resonate close to home.

Two questions from our conversations:

How do you respond to catastrophe?
If you could follow your bliss, what would that be?

Thinking about responses to the devastation in Japan, I created this video slideshow of Ji Mo 寂寞: The Stillness of Solitude.

Perhaps it is old fashioned to think that art can bridge the place between distress and comfort. Nonetheless, I offer this slideshow as an initial response. The music is a remix from a live performance at Lincoln Hall in Portland. The photos are from an early morning at Kubota Garden in Seattle. This stillness of solitude is a reflective space to recompose.

放火火の粉
hōka hinoko
fire sparks

放火炎
hōka hono(o)
fire flames

放火火事だ
hōka kajida
fire roars

Seattle-based artist Diem Chau responds by offering two crayon family portraits as part of a raffle on her blog. Chau will donate raffle proceeds to the Japanese Red Cross.

Here are other ways to alleviate suffering and oppression:

Have you found more responses worth noting?

Mother of Us All CityArts magazine review

2011-03-10T04:20:00.000-08:00

Marsha Mutisi told me to check out Rachel Gallaher's astute impressions of The Mother of Us All in CityArts Magazine. Gallaher writes about her experience of the performance and quotes Donald Byrd from the post-show discussion to give a deeper context for the work.

Here are the final four paragraphs of her article:

The music (an original score composed by Byron Au Yong), live spoken word (Marsha Nyembesi Mutisi) and recorded soundtrack of various commentators spouting newsworthy phrases like, “This year Barack Obama will devote special resources to Africa,” blend together at times in a cacophonous blur that adds to the chaos factor of the show. Moments of unintelligible political jabber fade into background against the virility and emotional life of the dancing.

In a post-show discussion Donald Byrd spoke about the overwhelming accessibility of conflicting news stories and the wealth of information available about Africa.

“One of the things I was interested in is that the audience curate their own experience,” he said. “I don’t know what the answer is; even the people in Africa don’t know what they answer is. I never felt that the goal of any of these projects was to present a solution. The goal of this piece is to get people to think about Africa during the entire piece. Most people don’t even think about Africa once during their day.”

The audience can’t help but think about Africa during the performance, as the soundtrack provides a constant, needed reminder that that in fact is the focus of the piece. Without it, The Mother of Us All would be just another beautifully danced work from Donald Byrd.

Read the entire review called "The Mother of Us All" Presents Open-Ended Views of Africa at CityArts Magazine.

Mother of Us All SunBreak review

2011-03-06T08:49:00.000-08:00

SunBreak editor Michael van Baker wrote a comprehensive review of Spectrum Dance Theater's The Mother of Us All. He begins with the challenge "Is that what Africa has come to mean, African aid?" and continues with "How do you dance a phenomenological investigation?"

The article is an incredible read. Here is an excerpt:

The surreal, CNN-gone-wild scenic and lighting design by Jack Mehler is joined to a score by Byron Au Yong, with live performance on the kora by Kane Mathis. The kora is an old, old instrument, and Au Yong has it almost vanish within a river of electronic, industrial sonic artifact, only to reappear here and there, never completely overwhelmed. The score is perfectly suited to what you see.

Byrd says his goal is that the work will spark in viewers a curiosity in Africa, our de facto "container" so long for the the disempowered and revolutionary, as Africa, here and there, finds its way to a middle class existence (at the same time as the U.S. middle class increasingly finds itself under new strains).

Au Yong took that to heart, so there's none of the Afro-pop percussion you might expect (again, an emphasis-shifting elision that effaces a cultural mode that has been reasonably important to Africans, at least). This music, this dance, is more tectonic, filled with subsidences. At the end, you realize that one reason the dancers have tried so strenuously to maintain contact with the ground is that it's moving beneath them.

You can read Baker's "Truth? You Can't Handle SDT's 'Mother of Us All" at SunBreak.

Mother of Us All Seattle Times review

2011-03-05T14:39:00.000-08:00

Michael Upchurch focuses on the power of the dance despite the barrage of audio in his review of Spectrum Dance Theater's new production The Mother of Us All. For the music, Upchurch writes:

The air fills with musical fragments, ambient street sounds and a series of talking heads holding forth on the challenges facing Africa. The sound tableau, composed by Byron Au Yong, mixes recorded material with Kane Mathis performing live on the kora (West African harp) and some laptop wizardry by Au Yong himself....

It's that aural backdrop that's the problem, however. Au Yong divides his score into distinct sections, but he shapes each one so similarly that the effect is monotonous. Mathis' kora is usually lost in the mix. The news analysts/politicians/foreign-policy experts are layered over one another, with some phrases audible and some lost in the shuffle. After a while, you just want to tune them out and concentrate on the dance ... which kind of means tuning out "Africa," because it's only subliminally present in the choreography.

Read The Seattle Times (PDF version) review called "Spectrum Dance Theater delivers meaty moves, but the audio trimmings are too much." The comments are fascinating as well.

If you experienced The Mother of Us All, what did you think?

Kane Mathis

2011-03-05T05:14:00.000-08:00

Siloo by Kane Mathis
For The Mother of Us All, I am honored to work with Kane Mathis. Kane is a multi-instrumentalist specializing in plucked string instruments such as the oud and kora. These instruments are akin to the guitar and harp. For Spectrum Dance Theater's new production playing at The Moore Theatre from March 3-5, I invited him to participate. After our initial meeting in early November 2010, I knew that he would be perfect for this project.

Kane is one of those rare musicians with a solid sense of self. He is grounded in his studies and dedicated to exploring sonic possibilities informed by a rigor towards understanding the traditional as well as contemporary contexts of the instruments he performs. Beginning in the late 1990s, Kane traveled to West Africa to study kora, a 21-sting Mandika harp. He learned:

that the kora, an instrument over 1,000 years old, functions to accompany storytelling as well as serves to relay current news;
to speak Mandingo and listen to the inflections and pauses enable his playing to resonate with the tones and silences of speech;

that musical traditions powerfully connect to folks when used in everyday life.

As a musician raised in Chicago, Kane also realized in his 10+ years of studying with Malamini Jobarteh and Moriba Kouyate, that he wasn't from a lineage of kora musicians; that even though he would have the opportunity to perform for audiences throughout The Gambia on national television and radio as well as earn him recognition by the Gambian president, he would need to incorporate his musical background as a classical, jazz and indie rock musician with his present life.

Kane performs on kora

Kane moved to Seattle over five years ago to follow another teacher, Münir Nurttin Beken from Instanbul. Beken founded the State Turkish Music Ensemble, composes for orchestras and film and is known as an oud virtuoso.

As a kora and oud musician, Kane currently calls Seattle home. He performs with a half dozen local bands. Additionally, he performs as a soloist as well as with choreographers such as Catherine Cabeen, as composer and musician most notably for the upcoming performance Into the Void to premiere at On the Boards in late April.

I first heard Kane at a 4Culture Touring Arts Roster showcase three years ago. Little did I realize that I would have the opportunity to work on a show about Africa and that I would be blessed to work with him.

Mother of Us All Seattle Times preview

2011-03-02T00:25:00.000-08:00

Michael Upchurch speaks with choreographer Donald Byrd about the upcoming performance The Mother of Us All to premiere at The Moore Theatre this Thursday through Saturday. Read the comprehensive interview called It's complicated: Spectrum Dance Theater explores Africa in Donald Byrd's 'The Mother of Us All' to learn more about the Beyond Dance: Promoting Awareness and Mutual Understanding (PAMU) series.

Here's an excerpt:

To viewers who protest that they don't know where to focus their attention, Byrd asks, "Well, do you know where to look in life?"

Byrd admits that theater audiences are used to being told where to look and how to feel. But for this particular subject matter, he believes, streamlining or simplifying the stage action would be the wrong choice.

"I want people to gather the information however they can and make whatever sense out of it they can." Their role, as he views it, is to "curate" what they're seeing.

"I can maybe direct them or guide them in a certain direction," he says. "But I don't want to come to a conclusion for them."

It's not just an aesthetic but an ethical stance on Byrd's part.

"It minimizes the complexity of the subject to simplify it so much that it's easy to follow," he says. "It would be presumptuous on my part to reduce it to something that's easily digested."

Read the full preview at The Seattle Times (PDF version).

The Mother of Us All preview video

2011-02-19T05:32:00.000-08:00

Choreographer Donald Byrd speaks about Spectrum Dance Theatre's upcoming production The Mother of Us All. We are two weeks from the premiering this work about Africa at The Moore Theatre in Seattle. This video by Zebra Visual, gives insight into our approach.

Donald uses "authentic structures" to generate the performance. What do you think?

Digital Media: Free Forum + Workshops

2011-02-01T04:12:00.000-08:00

Already 150 arts administrators, artists and funders have registered for the Engagement through Digital Media events happening in mid-February. This Forum + Workshop is part of the Washington State Arts Commission’s Arts Participation Leadership Initiative.

Personal Engagement in the Arts through Digital Media: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Nesholm Lecture Hall/SIFF Cinema, 321 Mercer St, Seattle Center

Presenter: Hanson Hosein
Respondents: Crystal Clarity, Scott Macklin, Deborah Person

The free Engagement through Digital Media Forum + Workshop offer specific digital storytelling examples that bring together voices from various communities and how they align with the missions of local arts organizations.

* * *

This is the third in a three-part series supported by The Wallace Foundation. Follow-up materials for parts one and two, Audience Engagement and Changing Demographics include video documentation of the Forum, selected readings and action steps for arts organizations.

Seattle Modern Orchestra presents Strictly Strings

2011-01-29T07:37:00.000-08:00

Before the concert of Strictly Strings, Seattle Modern Orchestra co-artistic directors Jérémy Jolley and Julia Tai presented a slide show about string techniques explored by composers Claude Vivier, Iannis Xenakis and John Adams. The highlight of the presentation was when Jolley pointed out that the filled-in triangle in the Seattle Modern Orchestra logo was the symbol to play the highest pitch, not an umbrella.

The concert started with Zipangu by Claude Vivier. Zipangu was a difficult work to understand. The balance between the violins, violas, cellos and lone string bass was uneven and the pauses were awkward. I wasn't sure whether this was the venue, orchestra or composition. Vivier himself was an intriguing character. Born in Montreal to unknown parents, he studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne and lived in Paris where he was working on an opera based on the death of Tchaikovsky. He was murdered in Paris just shy of his 35th birthday. Lonely Child for soprano and orchestra continues to be one of my favorite works, but Zipangu based on Vivier's travels in Japan in the 1970s, felt emotionally distant.

Syrmos by Iannis Xenakis was similarly distant in a different way. Jolley and Tai mentioned that Xenakis was influenced by mathematical models and architecture. The glissandi effects, mass sororities and spatial pizzicati continually moving around the orchestra caught my attention.

The concert concluded with Shaker Loops by John Adams. It was a joy to finally hear this composition performed live. Shaker Loops continues to astonish me with a continually evolving sense of direction that never actual resolves. With Tai's conducting, the Seattle Modern Orchestra sounded precise and nuanced. Their sound filled the hall with gentle tremolos and exciting accents.

Listening to these three compositions from the late 20th century, I wonder about the future of live performances of contemporary classical music. Speaking with Tai after the performance, she mentioned that this concert was volunteer driven. I was heartened that the composers I admired in college are admired by energetic performing musicians and appreciative Seattle audiences.

The Seattle Modern Orchestra's next concert includes my favorite violin concerto called Anahit by Giacinto Scelsi (performed by Michael Lim) on May 13, 2011. In addition, Cornish College of the Arts music department chair Kent Devereaux announced that Dutch composer Louis Andriessen will be in Seattle this March. I attended the world premiere of Andriessen's ROSA The Death of a Composer (libretto by Peter Greenaway) at Netherlands Opera. Never have I seen so much blood on stage (!)

Free Showings: Degenerate Art Ensemble

2011-01-28T07:20:00.000-08:00

Degenerate Art Ensemble presents free workshop showings this weekend in an office park in West Seattle. Called the Red Shoes Project, the showing features Seattle-based performance artist Haruko Nishimura and Korean-born Bay Area composer/performer Dohee Lee in their first in-depth collaboration. I attended the showing last night. Lee and Nishimura offer extended vocal techniques and a powerful presence together that offer exciting possibilities when further developed.

Dohee Lee

They performed a section based on Little Red Riding Hood with live music and film. The Red Shoes Project will premiere in May/June 2011, as part of the Degenerate Art Ensemble's Exhibition at the Frye Art Museum.

The Red Shoes Workshop Showing includes the talents of:

Haruko Nishimura (dance)
Jason Puccinelli (scenic design)
Ela Lamblin (sculptural instrument)
Leo Mayberry (video)
Dohee Lee (dance/percussion/voice)
Joshua Kohl (music)
Jherek Bischoff (music)
Christine Tschirgi (costumes)

They have two more free showings tonight and Saturday, January 28-29, 2011, from 7-8pm. Arrive early as seating is limited.

Commerce Center

2414 SW Andover St

Building F-105

Seattle WA 98106

Doodle scheduling made easy

2011-01-23T05:39:00.000-08:00

The Dragon Foundation in Hong Kong is scheduling a going away party for Phoenix, one of their beloved program officers. To schedule the gathering, they sent me a link to Doodle. Doodle seems like a useful tool to plan an event if you have the email addresses for the participants.

Here is a video about their services:

Do you have any online productivity tools you use to streamline the process of coordinating rehearsals, meetings or events?

The Big Gay Polish Show?

2011-01-14T10:59:00.000-08:00

The title of the show is really:

Radosław Rychcik
Stefan Zeromski Theatre
In the Solitude of Cotton Fields

… but I call it The Gay Polish Show as a way to frame my experience. I attended the Thursday, January 13th performance in Seattle co-presented by On the Boards and Polish Cultural Institute of New York. The show features two handsome men in black suits with microphones on stands + a backup house/punk/techno band called the Natural Born Chillers. So why The Big Gay Polish Show rather than RR/SZT/In the Solitude of Cotton Fields?

Show
In the Solitude of Cotton Fields is presentational. Most of the performance features two actors (Tomasz Nosinski and Wojciech Niemczyk) who face the audience and speak into microphones or move through expressionist poses. Occasionally, there are dance interludes sometimes with a strobing light. The band, in striped sailor t-shirts and white pants, rock out on drums, laptop, keyboards, electric guitar and bass. The action shows the inner thoughts of the two men through still and contorted faces and bodies + text spoken in Polish and projected as supertitles in English. Ergo, a show.

Polish
When I was in Warsaw, I stayed with the mother of a musician. This elderly lady seemed to be the picture-perfect image of an old Polish woman. She kept her grey hair in a tight bun and wore a large hand-knit sweater. Her flat was a concrete block of socialist architecture with a dark stairwell that led to two rooms. The living room had a drape that covered one wall and corner. There was a wooden table in the center of the room where we ate. We had canned pineapple for every meal perhaps because I was a guest from outside Poland? The room felt correct and austere until she pulled me closer to the corner.

(Polish continued…)
Behind the heavy drapes was an elaborate altar. Photographs of the Dalai Lama, beads, flowers, incense and pamphlets decorated her secret space. She told me that she was a Tibetan buddhist at heart ready to reincarnate so she could be closer to her teacher. In the Solitude of Cotton Fields similarly allows the audience a peek into a secretive life. Beginning with suited men dancing to techno music, eventually the smoke from the fog machine dissipates to reveal the time when men align with beasts. The brilliance of Rychcik's direction of the play by Bernard-Maria Koltes is that the danger zone is for the most part imagined. Striking moments are when "difference" becomes a placeholder for "injustice" and the idea that a successful exchange between men should not actually fulfill desire but rather have desire continue to grip.

Gay
The lipstick, nudity and kiss place the work within the rhetoric of the closet. Gayness here becomes a symbol of transgression from a suffocating normality, in this case an implied heterosexuality signaled by the wedding band. The work grounds itself in the uncomfortable reality of keeping secrets for the sake of appearances showing how gay continues to be relevant even with queer and transgender performance making the rounds.

Big
The show is loud. I wore earplugs all the way through. The show has to be bigger than life. What better way to share secrets than to yell accompanied by a rock band? Whenever I am in solitude I scream the loudest. It must be really awesome in the cotton fields. Moreover, there's an intense slideshow with images like a bleeding star knifed into the flesh around a belly button. During this slideshow, text appears saying "words are useless."

... so The Big Gay Polish Show or In the Solitude of Cotton Fields?

When I was in Europe, I was told that Americans were sentimental, yet I feel that there is a crying out to behold with this work. Or perhaps it is because I am American that I feel moved by the intensity of emotion felt between the men on stage last night. Or perhaps, in America, it would become The Big Gay Polish Show because as an American I have become immune to laughing at people who shame themselves so I need a tongue-in-cheek title to entice me to attend. Or perhaps it is a way to discredit the potential of a performance to probe uncomfortable territory.

Whatever the reasons, I am thankful for big gay Polish cotton fields where I can hang out and watch the angst of other men and their desires in what becomes more than a sound-byte exchange. In the Solitude of Cotton Fields continues for two more performances at On the Boards tonight and tomorrow night at 8PM.

Bright Idea

2011-01-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

Last night I heard the Seattle Symphony perform Bright Sheng's Shanghai Overture composed in 2007. Shanghai Overture contains biting harmonies and textural shifts that titillated the ears of both the audience and orchestra. It was delightful to watch the smiling faces of symphony members acknowledge curious sounds travel through the percussion, strings, winds and brass. I was amazed at how gracefully the music continually transitioned throughout this 8+ minute work.

This reminded me that one of the most significant lessons Bright taught me was that western classical music is about transitions. In addition to my weekly composition lesson, Bright convened a few students to analyze classical music from a composer's perspective. I remember analyzing a Brahms Intermezzo with him and two other students. Bright sat at the piano and played the music, then pointed out ways the rhythmic and melodic motifs continually appeared in ingenious configurations throughout the work. The seamless transitions that Brahms was able to achieve is a compositional technique I continue to value.

While Shanghai Overture references Chinese melodies, rhythms and timbres, the composition is scored for symphony orchestra. Bright considers this work neo-Classical. He shows how the modularity of Chinese folk music and the developmental aspects of western classical music co-exist in a sophisticated and exciting way. I consider this a Bright Idea (!)

The Seattle Symphony reprises Shanghai Overture along with works by Gunther Schuller and Alexander Borodin, plus a stunning performance by Gil Shaham performing Béla Bartók's Violin Concerto No. 2 this Saturday, January 08, 2011.

2010 Wrap-Up

2010-12-31T04:53:00.000-08:00

2010 Highlights

January 15-17
3Seasons composer
Olivier Wevers/Whim W'him
On the Boards, Seattle

January 20 - March 07
保重 Farewell Exhibition curator
artwork by MalPina Chan, Diem Chau, Paul Kikuchi, Annie Han + Daniel Mihalyo: LEAD PENCIL STUDIO, Tiffany Lin, June Sekiguchi & Ying Zhou
Columbia City Gallery, Seattle

February 18-20
Farewell composer
Donald Byrd/Spectrum Dance Theatre
The Moore Theatre, Seattle

March 27
Home & News performed
The Way Back Home, Portland Taiko
Winningstad Theatre, Portland

April 11-12
12 Minutes Max curator
On the Boards, Seattle

April 23-25
Dance, Music & New Media panelist
Rasmuson Foundation, Anchorage

May 01
Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas excerpt performed
May Day! May Day! 12-hour New Music Marathon
Town Hall, Seattle

May 14
Anna Homler & Friends performer
Chapel Performance Space, Seattle

May 16
Erik Satie's Vexations pianist
Jack Straw Productions, Seattle

June 08
Stuck Elevator reading
Chen Dance Center, New York

June 13-28
Stuck Elevator residency
Yale Institute for Music Theatre, New Haven

June 19-20
Fifteen (violin + taiko) premiered
Ten Tiny Taiko Dances, Portland Taiko
Winningstad Theatre, Portland

June 25-26
Stuck Elevator workshop reading
International Festival of Arts & Ideas, New Haven

August 14
Chinese Drumming Workshop
Regional Taiko Gathering instructor
University of Washington, Seattle

August 26-27
Engaging Audiences Forum + Workshops coordinator
The Wallace Foundation & Washington State Arts Commission

October 02-03
Home & News performed
Taiko Unleashed, Portland Taiko
Newmark Theatre, Portland

November 18-19
Changing Demographics Forum + Workshops coordinator
The Wallace Foundation & Washington State Arts Commission

December
Stuck Elevator receives a 2011 CityArtist Project Award, Seattle

Here's to continued music-making and gardening in 2011 and beyond. Cheers (!)

Holidays on the Farm

2010-12-25T09:33:00.000-08:00

Scrappy chicken wishes everyone a Merry Christmas with the reminder to care for folks in need. Scrappy chicken is thankful for the other hens in her flock who keep her warm at night with their full coat of feathers.

Farm Hack

2010-12-17T09:48:00.000-08:00

If you work on a small farm, garden in a p-patch, tinker in your yard or want to be inspired by people who grow food and refashion junk into treasure, check out Farm Hack. This is a new resource started by the National Young Farmer's Coalition.

Farm Hack is set-up as a blog where inventors can contribute ideas on how to make useful tools for farming out of seemingly useless items. Posts include how to mulch with found materials such as carpet squares as well as how to use the free 3D modeling tool Google SketchUp. Perhaps one day Farm Hack will be as popular as Ikea Hacker.

What?! You don't know about Ikea Hacker? This ingenious blog was started in 2006. Folks contribute ideas on alternate uses for Ikea items such as using the blue bag as a raincoat for their dog or turning a table on it's side to become a weaving loom.

I praise both of these blogs for their practical creativity. Food and shelter are basic but don't need to be boring.

Empire of Illusion and Gloria's Cause

2010-12-07T10:04:00.000-08:00

"... in a sound-bite society, reality no longer matters." Chris Hedges, Empire of Illusion

Recently, there have been two elegies about America that encourage me to continue asking questions. Last Sunday, I attended a revision of Dayna Hanson's performance inquiry into how the gritty reality of America's founding fathers intersects with America's current struggles. Last night, I finished reading Chris Hedges' diatribe about the collapse of the American Empire. Rather than a review, this is a reflection and a call to lay to rest a dysfunctional America.

I will use Hedges' Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle as a way to delve into Hanson's performance about America. Empire of Illusion tackles the cry that America is at the end of an empire. I've heard this before, but Hedges writes with an in-depth intensity that makes me comprehend the urgency of this death-knell. His book is neatly laid out with five simply titled chapters that cover the illusion of literacy, love, wisdom, happiness and America.

This was the third time I have experienced Hanson's Gloria's Cause. The first was a rehearsal preview last summer. The second was a workshop performance at the TBA Festival in Portland last September. In the most recent version at On the Boards in Seattle, the costumes and set were no-nonsense. The cast wore tailored business suits with occasional costume changes to represent the American bald eagle, George Washington, troops at Valley Forge and so forth. Musicians Maggie Brown, Paul Moore, Dave Proscia and others with trap set, electric guitars and bass, vocal mics, keyboard and trombone perform atop a scalloped platform and carpeted stage.

Likewise, Hedge's no-nonsense Empire of Illusion begins directly with a chapter on literacy that starts with a description of the World Wrestling Entertainment Tour and continues through other media circuses: "This cult of distraction... masks the real disintegration of culture... It deflects the moral questions arising from mounting social injustice, growing inequities, costly imperial wars, economic collapse and political corruption... The fantasy of celebrity culture is not designed simply to entertain. It is destined to keep us from fighting back." (38) Throughout Gloria's Cause, questions are raised about the foundations on which America is built. Bodies hunch over and contort. Characters speak at the blue carpet or through a Benjamin Franklin doll or sing incomplete songs through hand-held mics. The fragmented text shows a literacy fractured through the onslaught of entertainment created to distract.

In his second chapter on love, Hedges attacks the debilitating effects of the porn industry: "Porn is about reducing women to corpses. It is about necrophilia." (82) This chapter goes into terrifyingly dehumanizing places to show how sexual violence brings about a numbness for audiences and performers who consume and are consumed. In Gloria's Cause, Hanson contrasts an opening of two suited men performed by Pol Rosenthal seated facing the audience and Wade Madsen standing in profile. Two nude female bodies dance in unison, faceless and de-sexualized. The opening contrast of suits with lack-of-suits, speaking with non-speaking, eating with not-being-eaten causes a numbness that is broken by a recess where the entire cast rocks out in an American popular dance show-stopper.

The performance continues to include memorable moments such as Peggy Piacenza's American bald eagle existential monologue and Madsen's hip-hop-poppin' animatronic George Washington. Both characters ultimately break down through movement to offer a glimpse into another reality. Riffing off of the "inverted totalitarianism" that Sheldon S. Wolin proposes, where the corporate state has an anonymous grip on every citizen's livelihood, Hedges writes that "corporate media control nearly everything we read, watch or hear. It imposes a bland uniformity of opinion. It diverts us with trivia and celebrity gossip." Gloria's Cause upends the diversion with the painful reality of the iconic American bald eagle and robotic George Washington becoming debilitated. Revered symbols have no power when people starve. Hedges writes "as the government squanders taxpayer money in fruitless schemes to prop up insolvent banks and investment houses, citizens are thrown into the streets without work, a place to live, or enough food. There are now 36.2 million Americans who cope daily with hunger." (161) Trivia and gossip leave empty stomachs which show a lost eagle and hollow first president. In the performance, the eagle ends with a dance of death and Washington, who has run out of steam, can only sigh when prodded with a rifle.

New performance moments include a drunk Washington fighting with troops from Valley Forge (played by Jim Kent and Jessie Smith) at a Jerry Springer-like talk show. In a rousing tirade, Kent yells that even soldier uniforms were neglected to where shredded pants showed the "penis dangling out and balls shrunken up." This was in the late 1700s, during the American Revolutionary War. In the past 70 years, the federal government has squandered more than half of tax payers money on the military. Yet, when I turn on the radio, I don't hear of the $700 billion dollars the Pentagon received for their 2010 budget. Rather, I hear a sobbing father who remembers his son, a returning soldier who has committed suicide before being sent back to war. Hedges writes that "the U.S. military spends more than all other militaries on earth combined." (144) This has led to a debt that is more than $11 trillion dollars. Hedges calculates this at over $36k per person: "The bill is now due. America's most dangerous enemies are not Islamic radicals but those who sold us the perverted ideology of free-market capitalism and globalization. They have dynamited the foundations of our society." (151)

Aspects of Gloria's Cause are deliberately obtuse. Conformist corporate outfits hide the truth, so I know to search for clues elsewhere. By having the cast in suits rather than a red Coca-Cola t-shirt or a Daniel Boone coon-tail cap, I relied more on what the performers told me through movement and pauses. Even the media, according to Hedges, hides the truth: "Television journalism is largely a farce. Celebrity reporters, masquerading as journalists, make millions a year and give a platform to the powerful and the famous so they can spin, equivocate and lie.... No journalist has a comfortable, cozy relationship with the powerful. No journalist believes that serving the powerful is a primary part of his or her calling. Those in power fear and dislike journalists." (169) Similarly, performers like those who perform at On the Boards, are oftentimes jarring and uncomfortable, because the platform, in the set of Gloria's Cause, is actually not stable even though the carpet may be thick. Nonetheless, the performers at On the Boards reveal the uncozy truths of reality.

In chapter three, Illusion of Wisdom, Hedges shows how academia has sold out to corporate interests: "Any form of learning not strictly vocational has at best been marginalized and in many schools abolished. Students are steered away from asking the broad, disturbing questions that challenge the assumptions of the power elite. They do not know how to interrogate or examine an economic system that serves the corporate state. This has led many bright graduates directly into the arms of corporate entities." (108-109) Hedges notes that business majors are now 21.7 percent of the graduating population and that education majors have fallen from 21 percent to 8.2 percent (108). Even more surprising for me was learning that the highest paid employee at the University of California at Berkeley is the football coach: "He makes about $3 million," writes Hedges (94). Berkeley, which was at one time the bastion of student radicalism and social justice in America, has sold out, most horrifyingly in the bankrupt state of California. Hedges admonishes that "a culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, which fails to understand that the measure of a civilization is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death." (103) How can we navigate through morality and power to create values that result in a compassionate world? Hanson and her cast attempt at providing insight into the morass that has become America.

In my search, I read a lot of non-fiction with my guilty pleasure being self-help books. Now, I realize how easily these books lead to self-delusion. Hedges' chapter on the illusion of happiness tackles positive psychology. Hedges writes that "there is a dark, insidious quality to the ideology promoted by the positive psychologists... They strangle creativity and moral autonomy... Its false promise of harmony and happiness only increases internal anxiety and feelings of inadequacy." (138) Hedges uses the example of how corporations train employees to provide a "positive customer service experience" (137). Employees must act happy or risk losing their job and join the one in six Americans who live in poverty. In Gloria's Cause, the American bald eagle monologue/dance-of-death unravels this illusion of happiness to show the truthful pain of confusion and loneliness within many Americans.

While it was difficult to experience Gloria's Cause and read Hedges' Empire of Illusion, I appreciated many insightful moments. In the performance, there was a slide show that juxtaposed aspects of America from Elvis to cigarettes to civil rights to prison cells. For me, this showed the greatness and ugliness of America, but most significantly I came away with the sense that individuals have overcome oppression. Hedges' writes personally in his final chapter, the Illusion of America: "The country I live in today uses the same civic, patriotic and historical language to describe itself, the same symbols and iconography, the same national myths, but only the shell remains. The America we celebrate is an illusion.... Our nation has been hijacked by oligarchs, corporations and a narrow, selfish, political and economic elite, a small and privileged group that governs, and often steals, on behalf of moneyed interests." (142) Gloria's Cause shows the private moments of an earlier elite in America. How they floundered. How they confused. How they had their own self-interest in mind. Hedges continues in his writing about current Americans in power: "This elite, in the name of patriotism and democracy... has systematically destroyed our manufacturing sector, looted the treasury, corrupted our democracy and trashed the financial system." (142)

It is difficult to listen to the truth. It is more difficult to live within the truth. Hedges unravels illusions. Hanson and her cast show ways to reconsider the foundation of America. I offer my thoughts as a way to continue to question in a certain way, to put aside the why and gather courage for the how. Rather than why is America at the end of an empire, I ask how can I continue to live as an American? Informed by reading Empire of Illusion and experiencing Gloria's Cause, I am initially cautious. What keeps me going is the knowledge that every end signals a beginning.

Eight Quotes

2010-12-03T12:19:00.000-08:00

Nobel Lectures: From the Literature Laureates, 1986 to 2006 contains 21 talks given by writers upon accepting the Nobel Prize for their work. I initially checked out this book to read more from Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka and found myself captivated by many of the other authors.

Following are eight quotes I gathered from reading this collection.

Orhan Pamuk

In My Father's Suitcase (1986), Pamuk speaks about the fear of reading his father's writing: "For me, to be a writer is to acknowledge the secret wounds that we carry inside us, the wounds so secret that we ourselves are barely aware of them, and to patiently explore them, know them, illuminate them, to own these pins and wounds, and to make them a conscious part of our spirits and our writing."

Harold Pinter
In Art, Truth and Politics (2005), Pinter writes about hidden crimes and the challenges revealing the truth: "I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road.... Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, 'the American people'.... Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think."

Imre Kertész
In Heureka! (2002), Kertész reflects on the Hungarian dictatorship in the mid-20th century: "I understood that hope is an instrument of evil, and the Kantian categorical imperative--ethics in general--is but the pliable handmaiden of self-preservation."

Gao Xingjian
In The Case for Literature (2000), Gao cautions not to celebrate peace in isolation: "This new century will not be immune to catastrophes simply because there were so many in the past century, because memories are not transmitted like genes."

Toni Morrison
In The Bird Is in Your Hands (1993), Morrison's parable about the transfer of wisdom is especially powerful: "Language can never 'pin down' slavery, genocide, war. Nor should it yearn for the arrogance to be able to do so."

Derek Wolcott
In The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory (1992), Wolcott remembers a village performance by Indian Trinidadian perfomers: "They were not amateurs but believers."

Joseph Brodsky
In Aesthetics and Language (1987), Brodskly reflects on the Russian Revolution of 1917: "For in a real tragedy, it is not the hero who perishes; it is the chorus."

Wole Soyinka
In This Past Must Address Its Present (1986), Soyinka rages against the oppressive writing of Frobenius, Hume, Hegel, Motesquieu and others: "Warning! This work is dangerous for your racial self-esteem."

Reading these lectures from the literature laureates reminded me of the power of words, written in isolation, to grapple with the social condition.

Changing Demographics: Free Forum + Workshops

2010-11-09T03:50:00.000-08:00

As a musician based in Seattle, I am excited by the ever-changing influx of immigrant artists and audiences. Year-long events such as the Festál Cultural Festivals, which features 22 weekends filled with music and dance from various local ethnic communities, enliven the Seattle Center and remind me of the oftentimes exhilarating social aspects of performance in local and global contexts.

Next weekend, the Washington State Arts Commission's Arts Participation Leadership Initiative hosts Who’s New in Town? Arts Organizations Respond to Changing Demographics.

Forum
Thursday, November 18, 3-5pm
Nesholm Family Lecture Hall, 321 Mercer St, Seattle Center

Featured Speaker Salvador Acevedo
Guest Demographer Chandler Felt
Respondents Lane Czaplinski and Vivian Phillips

Workshops (choose one three-hour session only)
Friday, November 19, 9AM-12PM
Broadway Center Rehearsal Hall Studio #1, Tacoma

Friday, November 19, 2-5PM
Saturday, November 20, 9AM-12PM
Seattle Center House Conference Room H

Workshop Leader Salvador Acevedo
Facilitator Jerry Yoshitomi

The free Forum + Workshops provide a hands-on approach to grappling with the challenges and opportunities of reaching out to ethnically diverse and new immigrant audiences.

* * *

This is the second in a three-part series supported by The Wallace Foundation. Follow-up materials for part one, Audience Engagement, include a video of the Forum, selected readings and five ideas for arts organizations.

In February 2011, the topic will be Technology and Arts Participation (!)

Happy Autumn

2010-10-27T06:56:00.000-07:00

Finally, a sunny October day in Seattle.

Here are photographs of Red and Black thankful that the rain is not pelting their coop. Time to scratch about the chicken run and discover what treasures can be found in the wet earth under fallen leaves.

Learned from Shulamit Ran

2010-10-25T12:02:00.000-07:00

Melia Watras

Tonight, violist Melia Watras performs the world premiere of Perfect Storm, by composer Shulamit Ran. I went to hear Ran speak this afternoon at the University of Washington's School of Music.

Here are two things I liked from her talk:

In the early 20th century, there was the emancipation of dissonance. Why not have an emancipation of consonance?
Every work must contain the seeds of its own destruction.

Listening to Ran play and discuss her music, I was reminded that composers should be mindful of both the abstract considerations of craft as well as an emotional connection with the organic. Watras' program shows both craft and emotion with two works by Luciano Berio along with music by George Rochberg and Atar Arad.

Melia Watras, Viola: Ispirare

25 October 2010, 7:30PM

Meany Theater

4001 University Way NE

Seattle WA 98105

Remembering Kikuko

2010-10-12T04:33:00.000-07:00

Check out Home Revealed opening at the renamed Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience in Seattle. The show includes artwork by Kikuoko Dewa created for Ji Mo 寂寞: the Stillness of Solitude. Kikuko passed away in mid-February earlier this year.

Kikuko's 10-foot long shibori installation was a strong, silent presence throughout a work I created as composer-in-residence with Portland Taiko in 2007. Her art for Ji Mo 寂寞: The Stillness of Solitude floated above an incense burner to provide a connection between the performers, audience, stage and heaven. Towards the end of the show, I would touch the ball at the bottom of the bamboo shibori. It was a pleasure to spin the installation every night and feel it shimmer.

More about Kikuko can be read in A Way of Life: A Thread That Connects by Lorraine Pai.

Home Revealed opens Thursday and runs through April 17, 2011. Along with Kikuko, the artworks of Zuolie Deng, Andrew Hida, Meng Huang, Alan Lau, Amy Nikaitani and Dean Wong are featured.

Portland Taiko & SF Taiko Dojo

2010-09-28T09:44:00.000-07:00

In 1997, I visited San Francisco for a lesson with Tanaka Sensei. For those who don't know, Tanaka Sensei is considered the Grand Master of taiko in North America. He started SF Taiko Dojo in 1968.

I had heard that Tanaka Sensei was a strict teacher. I arrived early and watched a class taught by the performing members. Sitting on the floor, I was surprised by all the egg cartons that lined the concrete walls of the dojo. I sat politely trying to watch the class and not think of eggs.

During my lesson, Tanaka Sensei sized me up. Upon realizing that I was Chinese American rather than Japanese, he told me that I must explore Chinese philosophy. He revealed his fascination with Qi Gong and acknowledged the influence of Chinese aesthetics on taiko. I left the lesson empowered, not realizing how significant taiko and the incorporation of Chinese thought would become on my music.

This weekend, Portland Taiko hosts joint performances with SF Taiko Dojo. Michelle Fujii, Kelsey Furuta and Toru Watanabe of Portland Taiko perform my composition News, for bamboo/paper/taiko. The work combines instruments common to both China and Japan within a structure that allows the trio to think about and explore sounds and movements that are both contemporary and classical. The performers use their bachi as writing utensils. The paper floats then flickers. Drum patterns morph from set rhythms into poetic ambiguity.

Both Tanaka Sensei and Portland Taiko have taught me the importance of having a unique contribution within a community.

Disappearing email

2010-09-20T07:15:00.000-07:00

I am sad to report that my info@hearbyron.com email address disappeared yesterday - September 19, 2010. I have lost four years of archived messages and business contacts.

Apologies in advance if messages to info@hearbyron.com go unanswered. I have worked with Microsoft Office Live tech support to resolve this issue, but the account was canceled without my knowledge and information was permanently deleted.

This is perhaps a warning? Or perhaps this signals a new beginning?

I wish I could reach each one of you in person to let you know, but without email that is impossible (!) If you need to contact me, consider visiting my garden where I will be picking tomatoes, taking care of the chickens and composing music

Thanks for your understanding.

Ideas from Mike Daisey

2010-09-15T06:36:00.000-07:00

Finally, I have experienced Mike Daisey's work. At the TBA Festival in Portland, I attended The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. The show is a wake-up call about where and how technical devices are made. I write about Daisey, because his work caused me to go backstage to shake his hand AND take multiple call-to-action flyers after his performance. Rather than write about the show, I will share notes from his artist talk.

I don't care much for artist talks as they can be well-rehearsed-press-quotable-after-the-fact statements-about-work. In other words, the talks can be stale and aggravating rather than illuminating. Yet, I wanted to be in Daisey's presence, because I feel he is one of the greatest living philosophers that philosophy hasn't claimed.

Here are tidbits from the conversation with Daisey and his director Jean-Michele Gregory, moderated by TBA Festival guest artistic director Cathy Edwards:

Labels (e.g.- storyteller, comedian, actor) are used to eliminate having to think. They provide a way to reduce and sell work as an object, yet because of this reduction and circulation in the marketplace, labels accumulate baggage. Labels must be unpacked and/or placed alongside each other to create hyper-terms that cause people to pause and think.
Daisey performs from a non-script. Each scene of The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs was marked by him turning a page. On this page are notes from which he improvises. Using a non-script allows for an experience rather than commodity to exchange between performer and audience member.
Rarefication in art is a lie. Daisey does not believe in "white wall art." To have an honest exchange, is to place the work within a living context. In his performance, I noticed how even though he was on a proscenium stage, he aligned himself with the audience through his words and actions.
During The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, Daisey said that he can feel the waves of nausea throughout the audience as he alternates between speaking about Jobs with labor abuses in China.
Daisey doesn't believe in world premieres. He said that the idea of the premiere is akin to losing one's virginity. It can only happen once. Presenters do not necessarily want to have the world premiere, rather they do not want any other venue to have it.
Technology promises a utopian future where the object and body dissolve.
The hubris of Google is that we think we have access to knowledge when there are stories not on the network.
The through-line of Daisey's work is "the struggle to live an ethical life in the world."
The best storytelling is gossip because the stakes are clear.

If you miss Daisey at TBA, you can attend The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at the Berkeley Rep (January 11-February 27, 2011) and the Seattle Rep (April 22-May 22, 2011). I wish Daisey would post upcoming performances on his website. (Oh, I found an "upcoming" column on the right, when I enlarged my screen. Neither the Seattle Rep nor Berkeley Rep performances are mentioned though.)

At any rate, GO SEE MIKE DAISEY.

TBA Festival opening weekend

2010-09-13T07:28:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, I hitched a ride to Portland for PICA's annual TBA (Time-Based Art) Festival. Close to midnight, I wandered through the free opening night party at Washington High School (built in 1909/closed in 1981). The ominous brick venue was renamed THE WORKS (yes, all caps, dunno why). TBA Fest volunteers were a harried bunch like chaperones at a party where they'd rather be drinking.

Some volunteers abused their black PICA t-shirts telling visitors to clear out of art installation rooms. Other folks were too polite, leading me down hallways searching for a coat check that didn't exist. Eventually, I found myself outside the main auditorium where punksters Japanther and Nightshade shadow puppeteers tried to out-rock the crowd.

The audience won. Halfway through Japanther's set, auditorium lights went on and the crowd stormed the stage and tore the shadow puppet sheet down. The flimsy separation between art and life was revealed.

I was in the beer garden where the concert was projected through a cyclone fence. Watching from this vantage point with the ambient audio of drunken conversations plus aroma of the nearby taco truck was an auspicious start to this year's festival.

I didn't intend to write so much about the opening, yet this encapsulated the first weekend of performances for me. With an empty high school as festival headquarters, an adolescent awkwardness and curiosity whetted my apetite for what was to come.

Artistic director Cathy Edwards describes the theme of TBA 2010 as "storytelling." This is an apt description. (Read more in Portland Monthly, where writers Claudia La Rocco and Anne Adams have been posting insightful entries about the festival.)

Performances I attended ranged from the highly-saturated, multiple narrative threads of The Wooster Group's interactive 360-degree film collage There is Still Time... Brother and Dana Hanson's work-in-progress absurdist-rock-dance-theater-elegy Gloria's Cause to the singular narratives of Jérôme Bel's direction of dancer Cédric Andrieux in a work about Cédric Andrieux dancing and Mike Daisey's heart-opening tirade The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.

Daisey and Bel's work touched me with their no-nonsense staging and direct deliveries. Andrieux performed on a bare stage with a bottle of water and gym bag, Daisey performed seated at a table with a few sheets of paper.

One more note from my experience last weekend - for those of you at Mike Barber's Ten Tiny Dances 22, you'll remember the orange. For those of you not there, Ten Tiny ended with Daisey spitting an orange into the sold-out crowd. Need I say more? GO. The TBA Festival runs through September 19th in Portland.

Engaging Audiences: Free Forum + Workshops

2010-08-23T03:40:00.000-07:00

From August 26-27, the Wallace Foundation and Washington State Arts Commission host an Arts Participation Leadership Forum + Workshops called Engaging Audiences. The event is part of the Wallace Excellence Awards, which since 2006 has funded 54 arts organizations in Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle. Over four years, these areas will offer insights for encouraging engagement in the arts. I am excited to be helping coordinate events in Seattle.

The Wallace Foundation provides in-depth support to network people who value the arts with a place to share tactics for reaching existing and new audiences. The Arts Participation Forum + Workshops this Thursday and Friday are free. With researcher and consultant Alan Brown, participants will explore how audiences engage with various art forms, plus how arts organizations can connect with audiences.

Additionally, the Wallace Foundation provides complimentary Arts Participation and Arts Education Research resources that encapsulate the stories and outcomes learned as part of their participation-building research.

New Finds with Old Friends

2010-08-10T06:19:00.000-07:00

The other night, I met with Kris and Hiro at Native Foods in Westwood. We talked about Björk's interview on NPR and Raghava KK's talk on TED. It's always exciting to share new artistic finds with old friends.

I worked with Kris on Two by Four in 2003. The music features him singing the Japanese and Latin names for stars. I was reminded about how attentive to invention I was during that time. I composed Two by Four in August, while I was relocating from Los Angeles to New York, after visiting On Ensemble in Mount Shasta.

Kris continues to be thoughtful and rigorous in his practice as a musician. Meeting with longtime artistic friends like him refreshes my intellectual rigour and aesthetic excitement as a composer. This is an especially significant reminder during the transition from summer into winter, in this time of gathering crops.

25 Taiko Groups in Seattle

2010-08-05T08:46:00.000-07:00

The Regional Taiko Gathering happens August 13-15, 2010, at the University of Washington. Members of 25 groups + additional musicians from Alberta, British Columbia, Idaho, Oregon and Washington will take part in workshops. Some will be part of two performances. Thanks to Stan Shikuma, Barbara Yasui and the other RTG committee members for organizing and hosting this gathering.

Instructors include:

Michelle Fujii
Kelsey Furuta
Eien Hunter-Ishikawa
Eileen Kage
Eduardo Mendonça
Ringtaro Tateishi
Linda Uyehara Hoffman
Toru Watanabe

Additionally, I teach a workshop called Chinese Drumming Patterns.

Walking with ears open on World Listening Day

2010-07-16T06:21:00.000-07:00

The first World Listening Day is Sunday, July 18th. There are listening events in cities such as Colorado Springs, Hong Kong, Rijeka, Perth, Cumbria, Chicago, and Seattle. Seattle's event includes a Greenlake soundwalk hosted by the Seattle Phonographers Union. One of their members is sound artist/audio engineer Doug Haire. Haire worked with me on the recording Walking released in 2001. Here's an excerpt:

As inspiration for the music, I walked around Greenlake at different hours and listened creating an aural sketchbook similar to Claude Monet's series of haystacks painted at different times of the day. My favorite time at the lake was around 5AM, when the morning was wrapped in fog, people quietly fished, and ducks slowly awoke. On weekdays from 7AM to 9AM, the power walkers and joggers took over with individual Walkman headphones plugged into their ears. This shifted Greenlake from a place of being to one of doing.

With listening, it is possible to merge both being and doing. Thanks Seattle Phonographers Union for hosting a listening event around Greenlake. The free guided soundwalk happens this Sunday from 10AM to 4PM. Participants will be briefed on acoustic ecology and intentional listening inspired by the World Soundscape Project, World Listening Project, World Forum for Acoustic Ecology, and phonographers around the world.

Bicycle as Spinning Violin

2010-07-06T06:02:00.000-07:00

Conscientious about not reviewing works-in-development, Christopher Arnott (New Haven Advocate) wrote an article about the partnership between the International Fesival of Arts & Ideas and the Yale Institute for Music Theater. He undestood the mission of the Institute to pinpoint and develop distinctive and original music theater works.

... there are genuine efforts to find new ways of telling stories, creating characters through song, and arranging those notes for a wider range of instruments.

In addition, Arnott mentioned one of my favorite instruments, an amplified bicycle wheel built by Paul Kikuchi.

OK, so I will reveal one thing about the performance of Stuck Elevator: It’s about a Chinese food delivery person, so among the arsenal of instruments beat by percussionist Candy Chiu was a bicycle wheel which she bowed like a spinning violin.

I'm glad that the bicycle caught Arnott's imagination as librettist Aaron Jafferis and I work on an ending with multiple bicycles.

Wherefore Art New Opera?

2010-07-03T07:28:00.000-07:00

I used to be concerned by Stuck Elevator. After all, this work hovered awkwardly outside opera, musical theatre and performance art. Hip hop writer Aaron Jafferis and I nonetheless continue to develop this project encouraged by our experience last month.

Stuck Elevator was developed in June as part of the Yale Institute for Music Theatre and the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven. Director Chay Yew started the workshop process with the question: Is this an opera or a musical?

Aaron and I decided not to answer this question but rather focus on character and narrative. Performer Francis Jue played the Chinese take-out guy stuck in an elevator with nuance, intelligence and humor. Music director Perry So helped with the clarity of what I was composing. The comic-rap-scrap-metal string/percussion music came alive through Perry's conducting.

These past few weeks, Aaron and I heightened the drama through surprising yet conventional ways. For example, the bladder rap now has a workable groove and we have a sketch of a rapping General Tso battling our singing delivery man. The most exciting discoveries for me included figuring out ways to integrate rap with classical music and learning how to earn a musical moment. Now, I consider adding a beat-boxer and bass to the instrumentation of violin, cello, percussion, and bicycle wheel.

Anne Midgette wrote recently in The Washington Post (Is anybody listening?) about how contemporary American opera faces a crossroads because of audience expectations, unwieldy budgets, the question of genres and the paradox of presenters. How can new opera survive within outmoded infrastructures?

For me, being part of the Yale Institute for Music Theatre felt like camping out at the crossroads. Aaron and I chose to inhabit the unknown and write what the characters and story needed rather than what budgets or presenters wanted. The audience at the two sold-out showings provided a helpful gauge. Between the two performances, we switched songs around and inserted new material. The work made more sense after these changes. One audience member wrote:

I was not looking forward to watching a man go berserk in a confined space.... but what a miracle worker you are -- you managed to make his confinement very real but bearable. His flights of fancy, his dreams, his sense of humor, his conversations with his wife and child, pulled me into his life while sympathizing with his predicament.

Yale offered a support team that included vocal coach/rehearsal pianist Andrew Byrne, sound designer Hillary Charnas, percussionist Candy Chiu, violinist Sun Min Hwang, cellist Alvin Wong, mentor Scott Frankel, co-producer Belina Mizrahi, stage manager Maria Cantin, and production assistant Greg Nobile. Aaron and I had access to two grand pianos, rehearsal rooms and printers for our revisions which helped us learn more about how to make Stuck Elevator compelling.

Producer Beth Morrison and artistic director Mark Brokaw have created a viable solution to incubate new opera even if we choose not to define the work as an opera or musical. Additional kudos to Mary Lou Aleskie and Cathy Edwards at Arts/Ideas for believing in Stuck Elevator. Far from concerned, I am now energized by this work knowing that growing pains are necessary when stretching existing systems of music, genre and presenting.

How to get tickets for sold out Stuck Elevator

2010-06-20T01:52:00.000-07:00

I write this on the 10th floor of the Mad Towers in New Haven. Today is technically my day off, but Aaron Jafferis and I have a number of songs to revise and a few to write. We prepare for showings June 25th and 26th as part of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas presented with the Yale Institute for Music Theatre, a collaboration between the Yale School of Drama and Yale School of Music.

Stuck Elevator is the operatic solo performance about the Chinese delivery man trapped in an elevator for 81 hours. The workshop showing is sold out, but don't worry. I can get you tickets.

This past week, YIMT has been an amazing host. Producer Beth Morrison, artistic director Mark Brokaw, associate producer Belina Mizrahi, and production stage manager James Mountcastle have created a music-theatre writing haven. I have access to two grand pianos, three large work spaces, and a kick-ass support staff. Stage manager Maria Cantin and production assistant Greg Nobile have been keeping rehearsals on track.

Additionally, Aaron and I work with:

Superstar Francis Jue
Director Chay Yew
Music Director Perry So
Rehearsal Pianist Andrew Byrne

Musicians include violinist Sun Min Hwang, cellist Y. Alvin Wong, percussionist Candy Chiu, plus sound designer Hillary Charnas.

The Wall Street Journal and News-Times both mention the Stuck Elevator Workshop Reading at Arts/Ideas.

Friday, June 25, 7PM
Saturday, June 26, 1PM
Off Broadway Theater
(through The Yale Bookstore archway)
41 Broadway, New Haven CT

Both showings are sold-out, but I can get you a comp ticket. Let me know if you want a seat.

Exclusivity, Constraint, Liberate

2010-06-08T00:51:00.000-07:00

Rebecca Ragain wrote a comprehensive preview article of Ten Tiny Taiko Dances in Just Out. Ragain explains both Ten Tiny Dances and taiko. She also provides a context for the collaboration with quotes from curator/creators Mike Barber and Michelle Fujii.

Keywords from the article that resonate with me include exclusivity, constraint and liberate.

Photographs in this post are by Joni Shimabukuro. The one on the left features Keiko Araki and Kelsey Furuta performing my work Fifteen for violin and taiko. The photo below features Fujii with Portland Taiko playing uchiwa (fan drums).

Portland Taiko presents Ten Tiny Taiko Dances from June 19-20, at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts.

Fifteen: from abstract to personal

2010-06-03T06:28:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, I attended my first rehearsal of Fifteen for violin and taiko. Choreographer Michelle Fujii, violinist Keiko Araki, and taiko player Kelsey Furuta have been working from a score I sent a few weeks ago. The score is in fifteen sections to be performed in any order. This was the first chance for me to experience their discoveries live and offer insights.

Here are more thoughts about Fifteen along with photos from the rehearsal.

Last year, Portland Taiko celebrated their 15th Anniversary. Thinking about the number 15, I started a series of sketches for violin and taiko. I played with the number 15: 9+6, 3x5, Lo Shu magic squares, the word fifteen having seven letters, and so on. 15 in the abstract was versatile, but refused to grow into a musical composition. When artistic director Fujii mentioned Ten Tiny Taiko Dances, my thoughts shifted.

I remembered an article I had read about child sex trafficking in South Africa. One of the main characters in the article was Elizabeth, a 15-year-old girl. Her best friend had tuberculosis, full-blown AIDS, and was three months pregnant.

In Composition in Retrospect, John Cage wrote, "Music never stops. It is we who turn away." The World Cup happens in South Africa in June 2010. How can millions watch when next to the stadium, children are raped? Along with being a number, 15 is a transformative, magical age, yet some 15-year-old lives are truncated.

I realized that Fifteen refused to grow from number games, because music is transformative and magical. Taking the idea of truncation to the extreme, Fifteen contains 15 sections performed in any order as offerings and sacrifices. Moreover, while the violinist and taiko player rehearse sections together, they perform the sections apart. Elizabeth's best friend died. For Ten Tiny Taiko Dances, Fifteen struggles to live fully within confines where an eternity can take place within 15 seconds.

Fujii, Araki, and Furuta have found ways to merge the abstract and concrete with strikingly simple gestures. Notice the already limiting 4' x 4' stage further cut-in-half by the drum as well as the score tossed and crumpled about the stage.

Fifteen overflows with possibilities yet is contained. The performers talked about sections having clear narratives that they developed. At times, Araki plays the violin while lying down, at another time, they exchange bow with bachi (drum stick). The sounds they have discovered from the score and while moving are both strong and delicate. Fifteen comes alive within the joy and sorrow of multiple silences. Please attend the premiere.

Portland Taiko presents
Ten Tiny Taiko Dances
19 June 2010, 3pm
19 June 2010, 8pm
20 June 2010, 2pm

Go to Hong Kong and Shanghai

2010-05-27T05:11:00.000-07:00

The Dragon 100 is an annual program launched in 2002. This year the 100 lucky nominees from around the world go to Hong Kong and Shanghai (!) to meet with government officials, academics, and professionals. Delegates, age 18-35, gather to discuss world issues, explore their Chinese heritage, and reflect upon contemporary China. Additionally, they visit major socio-economic and cultural development projects. Most exciting are action plans garnered from seminars and discussions with university students and young professionals. These ideas provide innovative ways to improve the world through a focus on China.

This year the Dragon 100 Young Chinese Leaders Forum will be held in Hong Kong and Shanghai from 15-22 August 2010. The theme Exploring Shanghai and World Expo -- Building our Future provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to network with future Chinese leaders. I was a delegate in 2006, for In the Footprints of the Dragons -- A Study Tour on the Silk Road (Report PDF).

Being selected by the Dragon Foundation | 龍傳基金 was an incredible honor. I continue to keep in touch with many delegates plus my artistic philosophy and music will forever be influenced by my experience on the 2006 Leadership Forum in Hong Kong and Xi'an.

Nominate an outstanding young Chinese leader by June 15, 2010.

Dragon 100 Young Chinese Leaders Forum Poster (PDF)
Dragon 100 Young Chinese Leaders Forum Nomination Form (PDF)

Questions? Contact The Dragon Foundation | 龍傳基金

The First Steps

2010-05-21T04:12:00.000-07:00

Bob Hicks, a writer for Art Scatter, posted a blog entry about an initial meeting for Portland Taiko's upcoming Ten Tiny Taiko Dances. He wrote:

Byron Au Yong, the Seattle composer who’s worked with Portland Taiko before, arrives with a score already in hand. He passes copies around the circle: it’s elegant, intricate notation.

I'm excited about Fifteen for violin and taiko to be premiered June 19-20, at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts. The work is in 15 sections; each section should last for an eternity. Practically, each section lasts from 15 seconds to 5 sets of 15 seconds.

Previously, Hicks attended a recording session for Portland Taiko's CD Rhythms of Change (available at Amazon.com). His in-depth writing included a section about my conducting Michelle Fujii's work for violin and taiko called Slipping Through My Fingers:

The drummers are following the violinist, but they can’t hear her. They’re looking for compensating visual cues, and they’re a flick late. So Fujii asks Byron Au Yong, a Seattle-based composer who works internationally and has collaborated with several taiko groups, to stand out in the auditorium where everyone can see him. From a few rows up, he patiently motions entrances and keeps the beat: It’s all in the timing.

I'm excited to hear how Fujii and violinist Keiko Araki will interpret Fifteen, where the music is timeless, yet nonetheless timing is important.

Ten Tiny Taiko Dances

2010-05-19T14:22:00.000-07:00

Fifteen, for violin and taiko, will be premiered by Keiko Araki and Michelle Fujii, along with works by:

Mike Barber
Christine Calfas
Michelle Fujii
Subashini Ganesan
Carla Mann
Heather Perkins
Artur Sultanov/OBT
tEEth
Toru Watanabe

Ten Tiny Taiko Dances event happens in one of my favorite spaces at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts:

Winningstad Theatre
1111 SW Broadway
Portland OR USA

June 19, 2010, 3pm + 8pm
June 20, 2010, 2pm

840 Vexations at Jack Straw

2010-05-15T03:03:00.000-07:00

Liberation often arises from frustration. Beginning at 4pm today, 32 pianists will play Erik Satie's Vexations 840 times. I am scheduled to perform from 1:30-2am.

Satie's piano anomaly is deceptively frustrating. The melody wanders, the same pitches are written with multiple spellings, and the curious chords leave listeners drifting in sonic clouds. Yet, with his insistence on repetition (Vexations played 840 times should equal 18+ hours of music) Satie's ideas about the profundity of boredom and the wisdom of returning to a beginner's mind, points to an approach to music that is both decorative and sublime, mundane and extraordinary, as well as frustrating and liberating.

Amazing to think that Satie composed Vexations 100+ years ago in 1893, the same year that the U.S. Supreme Court legally declared the tomato a vegetable. Vexations was first performed in 1963, courtesy of John Cage.

Jack Straw Productions is a fitting location to host this marathon event. I fondly remember many late-night recording sessions in this unique non-profit recording studio. It will be dreamy to play the piano in the middle of the night.

Below is a schedule of the rotating pianists involved in the first-ever Seattle performance of Vexations:

4pm Karin Kajita
4:30pm Chase Hills
5pm William Chapman Nyaho
5:30pm Ann Cummings
6pm Hayley Pike
6:15pm Stanley Whitfield
6:30pm Garrett Fisher
7pm Jennifer Keuer
7:30pm Brian Kinsella
8pm Amy Rubin
8:30pm Michael Owcharuk
9pm Rachel Matthews
9:30pm Aleksandra Tsirkel
10pm Gust Burns
10:30pm Erin Rubin
11pm Roger Nelson
12am Daniel Arthur
12:15am Ann Cummings
1am Dawn Clement
1:30am Byron Au Yong
2am Korby Sears
3am Garrett Fisher
4am Gavin Borchert
5am Rachel Matthews
6am Shenandoah Davis
7am Jensina Byington
7:30am Nicole Truesdell
8am Keith Eisenbrey
8:30am Julie Ives
9am Tito Ramsey
9:30am Kelly Wyse
10am Paul Kikuchi
10:30am Tiffany Lin
11am Wayne Horvitz
11:30am Robin Holcomb
12pm Karin Kajita
12:30pm Roger Nelson
1pm Jennifer Keuer
1:30pm Nicole DeWolf

Preview Articles:

Get to know "Vexations" Michael Upchurch, The Seattle Times, May 2010
A Free Erik Satie Marathon! Christopher DeLaurenti, The Stranger, May 2010
Erik Satie's "Vexations" Gavin Borchert, The Seattle Weekly, May 2010

Not in Seattle? Listen to a live streaming broadcast on Hollow Earth Radio.

Anna Homler: Voices Carry

2010-05-11T09:59:00.000-07:00

This Friday, I join Amy Denio, Lori Goldston, Doug Haire, Susie Kozawa, + other experimental musicians in a concert with Los Angeles-based Anna Homler at the Chapel Performance Space. Homler is a performance art vocalist who gestures with garbles and gurgles. I had a fantastic time recording with her at Jack Straw Productions last year. We sang in alternative languages and genres prompted by recording producer Steve Peters.

Here's what the Seattle Occultural Music Festival & Nonsequitur say about Homler:

Since 1982, she has performed throughout Europe and the United States, collaborating with composers and musicians Steve Moshier, David Moss, Steve Roden, David Moss, Viola Kramer, Voices of Kwahn, Axel Otto, Frank Schulte, Geert Waegerman and Pavel Fajt, among many others. As a visual artist, her ongoing performance/installation Pharmacia Poetica examines the symbolic and tonal qualities of words and objects.

Be prepared for voices to carry...

14 May 2010, 8PM

Chapel Performance Space
4649 Sunnyside Ave N
Seattle WA 98103
$5-15

Kidnapping Water at Town Hall Seattle

2010-05-04T05:28:00.000-07:00

Writer Zach Carstensen mentioned that a highlight of the May Day! May Day! 12-hour new music celebration at Town Hall Seattle were excerpts from Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas. Carstensen wrote on The Gathering Note that the music got his "mind racing through the possibilities of performance without a performance space."

The May Day! May Day! marathon was the first time excerpts from Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas were performed indoors. Emily Greenleaf, Stuart McLeod, Dean Moore, and I sang and played water on the lovely Town Hall main stage surrounded by stained glass windows, wood benches, and music lovers. Along with water bells and gongs, we sang four bottled operas: Abunai (Warning/Warming), Hello Helicopter, Dust Away, and Sunset.

May Day! May Day! was curated by Paul Taub with advice from Steve Peters of Nonsequitur in association with Town Hall. It was great to hear Stuart Dempster, Wayne Horvitz, Robin Holcomb, Michael Lim, Melia Watras, and other contemporary classical musicians in this historic venue.

May Day! May Day!

2010-04-27T07:41:00.000-07:00

01 May 2010, 1pm-1am
May Day! May Day!

Town Hall and Nonsequitur present May Day! May Day! The 12-hour new music celebration includes performances by Stuart Dempster, Michael Nicollela, Michael Jinsoo Lim, and others. Dave Beck, Gavin Borchert and Zach Carstensen MC.

From 8:12-8:27PM, a handful of the 64 Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas will be performed by soprano Emily Greenleaf with Byron Au Yong, Stuart McLeod, and Dean Moore on water percussion. This is the first time excerpts from the work will be performed indoors (!)

Perry So to music direct Stuck Elevator

2010-04-20T09:09:00.000-07:00

Conductor Perry So will be music director for Stuck Elevator as part of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas/Yale Institute for Music Theatre workshop showings this June.

So is Assistant Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic and holds honors that include First Prize at the 2008 International Prokofiev Conducting Competition in St. Petersburg and a Dudamel Conducting Fellowship with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Stuck Elevator is a far cry from his usual work with symphony orchestras. In fact, So's engagement with Stuck Elevator this summer is sandwiched between performances with the State Symphony Orchestra of Russia and the Noord Nederlands Orkest. Wow (!)

It will be amazing to have his expertise on this solo-comic-scrap-metal-opera where one singer + a handful of instruments tell the story of an undocumented Chinese immigrant trapped in an elevator. Thanks to producer Beth Morrison and artistic director Mark Brokaw for finding Conductor So.

Stuck Elevator at Arts & Ideas

2010-04-13T03:12:00.000-07:00

Stuck Elevator receives workshop readings on June 25th and 26th at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven. The festival lists Stuck Elevator with the thematic nodes: society, philosophy and civil liberties. Check out their cool website especially the Daisy.

My Big Gay Ears

2010-04-12T10:13:00.000-07:00

Journalist and former record executive Joseph Dalton has a blog called My Big Gay Ears. It's a funny title and super resource. He was kind enough to mention my upcoming projects in a recent post.

Talk about bringing music to the people! Composer/performer Byron Au Yong is putting opera in bottles (no deposit required)....

Like a musical Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the Seattle-based composer created a series of 64 musical miniatures, each for a singer and a percussionist....

April 11-12 : OtB 12MM

2010-04-05T07:57:00.000-07:00

Need inspiration?

Check out the upcoming 12 Minutes Max at On the Boards. Ceramic Artist Marjorie Levy and I curated the following line-up of performance by artists based in the Pacific Northwest:

Duet with boxes by Eowyn Barrett (Portland OR)
Athletic dancer/acrobat trio ticktock (Seattle WA)
Dance duo CarliAnn Forthun & Tess Forrester (Vancouver BC)
Burlesque performers The Original Twins (Seattle WA)
Angela Kiser with choreographer Pam Kuntz & composer Spencer Thun (Bellingham WA)
Ensemble work from choreographer Chastity Wilson (Seattle WA)
Spontaneous performance sound art from Danaé Clark (?!)

11 April 2010, 7pm
12 April 2010, 7pm
12MM at On the Boards
$8

Way Back Home

2010-03-24T10:25:00.000-07:00

Portland Taiko performs The Way Back Home this Saturday. The show was developed as their national touring performance in 2007. This is the first time it will be performed in Portland.

It includes two of my favorite instruments: paper & bamboo. You can hear these materials along with taiko in the work I composed for them called News, as well as throughout the program.

27 March 2010, 2 & 8pm
Portland Taiko presents The Way Back Home
Winningstad Theatre
1111 SW Broadway
Portland OR 97205

Stuck Elevator at Yale

2010-03-11T04:33:00.000-08:00

Stuck Elevator was selected as one of two original music theatre shows to receive workshops at the Yale Institute for Music Theatre in New Haven from June 13-27, 2010. The institute, produced by Beth Morrison with artistic director Mark Brokaw, is in the process of selecting the cast and musicians.

Here is how the YIMT describes the work:

Stuck Elevator is a surprising, engrossing, and hallucinogenic roller-coaster ride through the swirling and claustrophobic mind of an illegal immigrant Chinese food delivery man.

Good-Bye Farewell

2010-03-09T05:11:00.000-08:00

"A farewell is necessary before you can meet again." Richard Bach

Thinking about personal moments of leave-taking, I reflect on the meanings of good-bye. How do sounds and objects represent farewell? What are the everyday and magical feelings associated with departure? Where does imagination meet reality when we embark on a journey?

Here's a video response from Ying Zhou called Small Dance.

Ying Zhou is a Beijing-raised/Seattle-based dance artist. She recently performed For These Unclosings, a dance solo directed by new media artist Susie Lee. Zhou's video works are supported by 4Culture and Seattle's Mayor's Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs. Her works have been shown in Brazil, China, and Japan as well as local festivals and venues.

Some people leave to search for one place and find themselves in too many places. When Zhou relocated from Beijing to study geography in the United States, she found herself in multiple locations. Now a dancer and mother, Zhou feels her body stretched and floating, tensed and relaxed. The video work Small Dance juxtaposes Zhou's physical body with landscapes of Beijing, Yunnan, and Issaquah. When somebody leaves, there continue to be traces of all the places they have been and wish to go.

Pinpoints of Memory

2010-03-06T05:21:00.000-08:00

The Farewell Exhibition ends at the Columbia City Gallery on March 07. Here is the inspiration behind Diem Chau's art work Object Memory.

dress that inspired Diem

Diem Chau combines everyday mediums such as paper and thread with simple means such as stitching to create delicate vignettes of memory, gesture, and form. Her work has been featured in exhibitions in Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and Seattle. In addition, Chau's work graces the pages of Harpers, Fiberarts, Readymade, and American Craft Magazine. Honors include an Artist Trust Fellowship. She holds a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts.

With Object Memory, Chau continues her fascination with combining everyday mediums, such as paper and thread, to create tangible and textural vignettes of exile. A few years ago, Chau returned to her native Vietnam. She was surprised when a hand-me-down dress she wore as a child was returned to her. Stitching the form of this dress into paper, Chau reveals holes of separation that provide a glimpse into pinpoints of memory.

Walk through Art

2010-03-05T05:58:00.000-08:00

Two more days to catch 保重 Farewell before it closes at the Columbia City Gallery. Today I write about Gatemouth a work by sculptor June Sekiguchi.

Sekiguchi was born and raised in Arkansas. She is represented by ArtXchange Gallery and is a member of Shift Collaborative Studio in Seattle and artEAST in Issaquah. Her work is in the collections of King County Portable Works, the Wing Luke Asian Museum, and Chefchaouen Municipality in Morocco. She recently exhibited her work in Chicago and Houston and will be showing in Stockholm, Sweden in 2010. She has a bachelors degree in Studio Art from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

In the doorway called Gatemouth, Sekiguchi incorporates patterns that cross cultures and reference points. Gatemouth is the literal translation of her surname and provides a place where past/present, life/death, and stillness/motion meet. The doorway's lintel, in the shape of a boat-like vessel, rides on the mouth of a river where we are sometimes sure and sometimes unsure, yet realize that to stand at the threshold forever is to never say good-bye.

Quick! If you find yourself stuck in life, indecisive, and shuffling, walk back and forth through Gatemouth. You will make a decision about your next step after crossing through Sekiguchi's work. If you can't decide and keep dilly-dallying, the gallery staff will call the cops to arrest you.

What are you waiting for?! Walk through Gatemouth today.

Imagine Unfinished Art

2010-03-05T02:57:00.000-08:00

The exhibition 保重 Farewell ends at the Columbia City Gallery this Sunday at 4pm. Annie Han + Daniel Mihalyo: LEAD PENCIL STUDIO created an installation called Oregon.

With Oregon, Han + Mihalyo: LEAD PENCIL STUDIO continue their practice of "architecture in reverse" with photographs of unfinished works. Pictures mean nothing or are unresolved. They carry memories which are final and incomplete.

Korean-born Han and U.S.-born Mihalyo have collaborated as LEAD PENCIL STUDIO since 1997, working on projects at the architectural scale. Beginning in 2002 they began to exhibit their collaborative site-specific installation projects locations that include the San Francisco Exploratorium Museum, Center on Contemporary Art, Suyama Space, Emily Carr Institute of Art, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Henry Art Gallery, and Boise Art Museum. They have been awarded an Artist Trust Fellowship, Stranger Genius Award, Rome Prize, Emerging Voice by Architecture League of New York, Creative Capital Visual Arts Grant, and the New York Prize by Van Alen Institute.

The photographs of unfinished projects in Oregon float out of a wooden box onto a grey wall. What are you waiting for?! Go Imagine Unfinished Art at the Columbia City Gallery through Sunday at 4pm.

Decode the Art

2010-03-04T01:44:00.000-08:00

photo by Michael Ryan

The Columbia City Gallery exhibition 保重 Farewell ends Saturday, March 06, 2010. At the show, you can stick your head in art by Tiffany Lin and play musical instruments by Paul Kikuchi. You can also decode art work by MalPina Chan.

Chan creates multidimensional collages that have been featured in exhibitions at the Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle City Hall, ArtXchange Gallery, Rosetta Hunter Gallery, and Woman Made Gallery in Chicago. Her work is in the public collections at the UW Medical Center, King County Courthouse, 4Culture King County Portable Works, Harborview Medical Center, Portland Regional Arts & Culture Council, and the Evergreen State College Rare Books Collection as well as the Women Beyond Borders: Art Expressing Life, an international community building project. Chan is represented by Patricia Cameron Gallery.

In her three-dimensional work Aspects of the Journey, Chan gathers artifacts of passage with a nod to history. Paper unfurls from an antique Chinese writing desk to reveal images of citizenship documents, certificates of residence, and passport photographs. The swirling collage layers symbols such as 18 small scrolls for luck, rice for sustenance, and silk for fortune. Images on paper are fragile and arbitrary, yet in the stillness and anonymity of the names and photographs, hidden back stories reveal the strength of survival.

photo by Michael Ryan

What are you waiting for?! Decode Chan's Art before the show closes this Saturday at 6pm.

Columbia City Gallery
4864 Rainier Ave S
Seattle WA 98118
(206) 760-9843

Play the Art

2010-03-03T01:53:00.000-08:00

<5:5:3> by Paul Kikuchi

Paul Kikuchi is a percussionist, composer and instrument builder. As a musician, he performs in a number of different ensembles including the Empty Cage Quartet, Orkestar Zirkonium, and Paul Kikuchi’s Portable Sanctuary. Kikuchi runs Prefecture Records, a small record label specializing in experimental percussion music. His honors include an Artist Trust Fellowship and a Montalvo Arts Center Residency.

Kikuchi scours surplus stores, salvage yards, and street corners to find discarded metal he fashions into musical instruments. His work, both aurally and visually, signals an uneasy commingling of childhood play with machinistic violence. Kikuchi's two percussion sculptures -- Artillery Welcome Bell and <5:5:3> -- invite the visitor to play and reflect on the meaning of sounds made from detonated shells and saw blades.

What are you waiting for?! 保重 Farewell, an exhibition at the Columbia City Gallery, ends this Saturday, March 06, 2010. Go to the Columbia City Gallery and Play the Art.

New Music Disaster Averted

2010-03-01T13:03:00.000-08:00

Preludes to Disaster was the formidable title of a concert of contemporary Danish and Icelandic Music that featured works by composers Anders Brødsgaard (b. 1955), Steingrimur Rohloff (b. 1971), and Peter Bruun (b. 1968). Works by the latter two composers were world premieres co-commissioned by the Seattle Chamber Players and FIGURA. While the concert, which concluded the first weekend of Icebreaker V: Songs of Love and War at On the Boards, could have been a calamitous event, the works were well-performed, musically intriguing, and deceptively complex.

The Sunday evening concert began with Brødsgaard's Galgenlieder (Gallows Songs). The songs were performed by FIGURA, a music and theatre ensemble based in Copenhagen, which included mezzo-soprano Helene Gjerris, accordion player Frode Anderson, bassist Jesper Egelund, and percussionist Frans Hansen. Paul Taub from the Seattle Chamber Players joined them on flute and piccolo. Each number of the 10-song work was introduced by the charming Gjerris. Some songs were brief such as Nachtbild (Night Image), a sprechstimme number with all the musicians speaking, stomping, and clapping. Other songs were longer such as Der Hecht (The Pike), a musical pastiche that went from a jazz lounge-style to a drinking song to other stylistic genres. Galgenlieder had the feel of a German song cycle about death that was lovingly unsentimental, humorously imaginative, and performed with finesse.

Galgenlieder was well-paired with the first world premiere on the program Stadig ikke/endu ikke (Still not/not yet). This quiet, rhythmically intricate composition by Rohloff was sung in English to great effect by Gjerris. FIGURA added bass clarinetist Anna Klett and the Seattle Chamber Players added violinist Mikhail Shmidt, clarinetist Laura DeLuca, and cellist David Sabee. Swedish-born/Copenhagen-based conductor Erik Jakobsson joined them on this evocative work. The sparse English text was sometimes spoken and sometimes sung by Gjerris in a low tessitura. The inhale/exhale ending amplified by the wind instruments was particularly effective for this sensual work.

After intermission, bassist Egelund performed a solo called Hit Upon. The work was misnamed a solo as there was a recording of string bass sounds that the acoustic bass performed with. This distracted some of the audience as they tried to figure out the relationship between the live bass with the recorded bass. Much of the work seemed like an exercise in extended string bass techniques, but by the end the music was integrated. At any rate, it was a pleasure to experience Egelund as he performed wearing headphones, like a rock star in a studio.

The final work and second world premiere on the concert, Preludes to Disaster by Bruun, was full of intriguing sounds within shifting tonal textures. The ensemble conducted by Jakobsson expertly layered the tuneful melodies with repetitive canons to sound lush and full. Again, Gjerris displayed versatility by singing with delicacy and power. Even the alarm bells and high vocal melismas sounded beautiful. Overall, Preludes to Disaster, the premiered composition as well as the entire concert, averted any feeling of a contemporary-classical-music-concert-gone-wrong. There were no new music casualties in the audience of about 130 people, but rather ears curious to hear more new music from Denmark and Iceland.

Italian Futurism Today

2010-02-28T04:45:00.000-08:00

"Their programming is always a surprise. Must be something in Seattle's water."

A paraphrase of a quote I remember while speaking with David Schotzko, Promotion Director at music publisher Boosey & Hawkes. We talked about American contemporary music ensembles and he explained why the Seattle Chamber Players were unique. Funny how that works, how in New York, I come to appreciate a local musical group and how in a different city, I long to drink from Seattle's tap.

Now in its 20th year, the Seattle Chamber Players continue their reputation for presenting an eclectic array of contemporary classical music from around the world with Icebreaker V: Love and War. The festival featured music from Holland, Italy, Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, Denmark, and Iceland with soloists and ensembles from those countries as well as Japan, Poland, Germany, and elsewhere (whew!). On the Boards played host with a half dozen performances as well as composer seminars.

The full line-up reminded me of being at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Darmstadt in 1994. As I was fond of the Italian concerts at Darmstadt, I chose to attend Music from Modern Italy: Life, Color, and Movement on February 27, 5:30pm. The music was performed by the Xenia Ensemble, founded in Turin in 1996 by four foreign musicians. Three of them performed: Irish violinist Eilis Cranitch, British cellist Elizabeth Wilson, and German pianist Caroline Weichert. While the mood at On the Boards on a Saturday afternoon was more subdued than the seething energy of hearing music in the summer heat at Darmstadt, the performance offered an intriguing sampler of Italian new music for piano trio.

The extensive program included works from nearly 100 years ago. Wilson explained the inclusion of works by Futurist composers Francesco Balilla Pratella (1880-1955) and Alfredo Casella (1883-1947) to contextualize the more contemporary music to follow. Italian music in the early 20th century was dominated by the tune-laden operas of Puccini and Giordano. Out of his frustration, Pratella wrote a Manifesto of Futurist Musicians (1910), where he stomped on "well-made" music to liberate individual Italian musical sensibilities from bel canto.

For all his pontificating (Pratella also wrote the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Music and The Destruction of Quadrature), the Finale (1928) sounded like a tribute to his late-romantic idols Wagner and Strauss without the overly-gushing development of motifs, but rather evocative harmonies that appear suddenly. Similarly Casella's Sicilienne (1914) and Foxtrot (1920), both for piano trio, showed the influence of French colleagues Debussy and Stravinsky, without the expertise. In the Foxtrot, I kept hoping that Casella's duple meter would switch to three or five to give the music rhythmic vitality.

Favorites on the program included the piano solo Looking Up (2008) by Lucio Gregoretti (b. 1961). Weichert's controlled touch and ability to differentiate between the three voices gave a quiet intensity to the steadily moving bass line. The audience was so focused on the trance-like polyphonic music, that when the pianist turned the page there was a mild shock. The other solo Weichert performed, Anamorfosi (1980) by Salvatore Sciarrino (b. 1947), started like a music box on steroids and ended so abruptly with a quote from Ravel that the audience didn't have time to laugh.

The two string solos included Canto Antico (2009) by Giulio Castagnoli (b. 1958) where extended violin techniques included a number of jeté played expertly by Cranitch as well as Lame (1982) by Franco Donatoni (1927-2000) where the peculiarly crafted cello gestures sounded smoothed out, rather than enjoyed by Wilson.

Other piano trio works on the program included My Blues (1982) by Lorenzo Ferrero (b. 1951), Notturno (1980) by Gilberto Bosco (b. 1945), and 1916: forze di megalopoli in fronte (scultura architettonicao - futurista) by Alberto Colla (b. 1968). The Notturno was an audience favorite beginning with one note, developing into trills, then into mini-cadenzas for piano, violin, then cello. The final work 1916, included string glissandi at the end that upset my friend so much that Alex Ross should include this work on his recent list of Top Ten Glissandos.

My friend also commented that he wanted to watch the Xenia Ensemble play bridge -- the card game -- because they worked so well as an ensemble. Whether bridge or Italian Futurist music and it's inheritance, Icebreaker V at On the Boards was an event that reminded me that there are intriguing strains of new classical music performed by skilled ex-pats all over the world. The late afternoon audience of about 65 was clearly appreciative. Thanks Seattle Chamber Players and On the Boards for continuing to introduce eclectic, rather than trendy, music performed at a high level to Pacific Northwest audiences. Listening to the concert reminded me that composing is about possibilities.

Seattle Times FAREWELL Preview

2010-02-16T09:54:00.000-08:00

Michael Upchurch has written an insightful preview about FAREWELL: A Fantastical Contemplation on America's Relationship with China to be premiered by Spectrum Dance Theatre February 18-20, 2010, at The Moore Theatre.

Here are pull quotes about the music:

The sound — with its Chinese melodies, radio newscasts, Maoist propaganda and snippets of Beethoven — is all-enveloping....

(Donald) Byrd relishes having a score created from scratch. "The advantage of it is that everything is new. There's more back-and-forth and give-and-take, rather than the dance trying to conform to what already exists. So the music adjusts just as the dance adjusts."

.... Au Yong's score is similarly multistranded, ranging from melodies of ravishing beauty on traditional Chinese instruments to sound collages akin to the Beatles' "Revolution No. 9."

Check out the entire preview called Spectrum's latest show contemplates geopolitics and up-close, high-energy dance [PDF] published in The Seattle Times on February 13, 2010.

FAREWELL Preview Video No. 2

2010-02-14T07:12:00.000-08:00

Check out Zebra Visual's Video No. 2 of FAREWELL: A Fantastical Contemplation on America's Relationship with China. Donald Byrd and Spectrum Dance Theatre are featured in this preview from an open rehearsal at The Moore Theatre last week.

Somehow my name was left off the music credits in the video, but you can hear my audio ideas. To align myself with Donald's ideas of the documentary aspect of the production, I've included excerpts from news broadcasts. I've also mixed in some whacked out er-hu and Chinese percussion to make the Beethoven and Chinese music sound less precious.

FAREWELL premieres Thursday through Saturday, February 18-20, 2010, at The Moore Theatre in partnership with the Seattle Theatre Group.

3Seasons Music Insights

2010-02-03T09:16:00.000-08:00

Check out Victoria Brown's insightful post about the music for 3Seasons premiered by Whim W'him at On the Boards last month. Brown's thoughts encourage me, especially the idea that in fiction there is a suspicion of stories that have "too happy an ending."

I am grateful that she recognizes how the "unnerving" and "weird" new music fits the uncomfortable intent of 3Seasons. The performance brings the dancers and audience closer together through the state of missing the recognizable comfort of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons.

Brown's post is enlivened by photographs by Kim and Adam Bamberg of La Vie Photography. I am fond of this image where Jim Kent plays the violin with a birdcage on his head during the second section of Autumn.

FAREWELL Open Rehearsal

2010-02-02T03:28:00.000-08:00

Tonight is the open rehearsal for FAREWELL: A Fantastical Contemplation on America's Relationship with China. As composer on this project, I've been attending rehearsals at Spectrum Dance Theatre and meeting with choreographer Donald Byrd as well as musicians Paul Kikuchi and Tiffany Lin. This new work will be premiered at The Moore Theatre in less than three weeks (!)

Working on FAREWELL I've learned that:

Becoming less ignorant provides more solutions than becoming an expert,
Performance sparks when presented as an actively engaged forum,
Courage is shameless.

Rehearsals have been intense and magical. Come to The Moore tonight at 7PM for the Open Rehearsal: free and open to the public. Attend the show February 18-20, 8PM.

Stick your Head in Art

2010-01-28T04:11:00.000-08:00

Has Fallen in the Well by Tiffany Lin

Tiffany Lin's Has Fallen in the Well is included in the exhibition 保重 Farewell at the Columbia City Gallery through March 07, 2010.

Lin draws upon the solitude of childhood in her audio sculpture Has Fallen in the Well. Within a paper box, grass grows as if from suburban California. An audio remix from the story Tikki Tikki Tembo plays in the intimate one-person standing-room-only lantern, where one wants to both stay and exit. A too-close-for-comfort intimacy often leads to rushed good-byes.

Born in Taiwan and raised in California, Lin began studying piano at a young age. She continued piano studies at CalArts and completed a Bachelors in Music at the Cornish College of the Arts. Honors include an Artist Trust Grant, Jack Straw Residency and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellowship. Projects include music for prepared piano and percussion with Paul Kikuchi as well as performing in non-traditional spaces with the Toy Boats, a toy piano quartet featuring small and toy instruments.

What are you waiting for?!

Go to the Columbia City Gallery and stick your head in art.

Columbia City Gallery
4864 Rainier Ave S
Seattle WA 98118
(206) 760-9843

The East is Red

2010-01-25T08:15:00.000-08:00

In the midst of composing for FAREWELL. Working on the timeline canon is difficult, but am learning more about 20th century Chinese history. Here's audio of Chairman Mao Zedong proclaiming the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

As a side note, watching The East is Red makes me wonder about "hope".

To Tickle the Ears

2010-01-20T10:44:00.000-08:00

I've started teaching Listening to Music again at Cornish College of the Arts.

Three of my favorite sites to discover music are:

Musique Contemporaine - a French site that includes many composers
UbuWeb - a resource dedicated to avant-garde and outsider sound art
NewMusicBox - an online forum from the Amercian Music Center

I'm always searching for music to tickle the ears. Suggestions for me and my students?

3Seasons Musicians

2010-01-07T07:45:00.000-08:00

A bit overdue, I announce the musicians for 3Seasons. The trio includes Quinton Morris (violin), Tiffany Lin (cello/toy piano), and Stuart McLeod (percussion/electronics). 3Seasons is prompted by Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and high heels. Whim W'Him dancer Jim Kent will play violin during special moments, that is, when he doesn't have a birdcage on his head.

3Seasons premieres at On the Boards next week - January 15-17. Friday night's performance is already sold-out. Here is information about the musicians:

Quinton Morris attended the North Carolina School of the Arts, the Boston Conservatory, and the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a Doctor of Musical Arts in violin performance. He has recently performed chamber music at Town Hall Seattle and has appeared as concerto soloist with the Seattle Symphony, the Tacoma Youth Symphony, the Renton Youth Symphony, the Thalia Symphony, Keningston Symphony, and Orchestra Seattle. Morris is Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Chamber and Instrumental Music at Seattle University.

Piano player and toy pianist Tiffany Lin has been sitting at the keyboard fumbling for the right notes since 1986. Her small-town, classical background is what has influenced her interest in expanding standard piano techniques and disassembling pianos. Tiflin studied at CalArts with pianist Peter Miyamoto, violinist Leroy Jenkins, and trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith. Lin holds a Bachelors of Music from Cornish College of the Arts where she studied with Laura Kaminsky and Oksana Ezhokina.

Stuart McLeod recently finished the two-year Pacific Northwest Film Scoring Program. He holds a degree in Music Composition from the University of Washington, where he studied composition with Richard Karpen, William O. Smith, and Kenneth Benshoof, as well as percussion with Tom Collier and Michael Crusoe. McLeod has written an orchestral score for the indie film The Knitter and numerous soundtracks for Brown Box Theater. He leads the experimental group SIL2K and plays drums with the instrumental rock band TRANSPACIFIC. In addition, McLeod has played percussion with Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra, Federal Way Philharmonic, and Gamelan Northwest.

First Egg

2010-01-01T04:48:00.000-08:00

First egg of the new year, but which pullet is officially now a hen: Red, Black or Star?

Hunger: An Unnatural History

2009-12-15T02:39:00.000-08:00

Sharman Apt Russell's Hunger: An Unnatural History is an exhaustive study of what hunger represents. The book includes anecdote, history, anatomy, and iconography related to feast, famine, and fasting. The author's sources cover a wide range from medical texts, religious parables, journal entries, and historical records to Kafka and Gandhi.

Especially moving are Russell's personal struggles with food. As she attempts to find the meaning behind food as an American with the privileges and contradictions of knowing hunger from feeding her own children juxtaposed with commercials of hungry children around the world, she voices a compassion that "hunger cannot be ignored." Most devastating for me is the section about cannibalism in China - yi zi er shi (swap child, make food) - where in the 1930s corpses of starved girls were boiled into soup.

Hunger is recommended for people who need to read stories about eating, starving, and everything in-between from a poetic voice who references multiple disciplines throughout history and around the world.

Bret's Amazing Mind

2009-11-29T06:31:00.000-08:00

After meeting with writer/director/theatre-maker Bret Fetzer, I had insight on two matters:

Violence as a Solution
Celebrity as Politician

Bret and I discussed our fascination with the Fort Hood Shootings. He said that ever since the 90s in America, violence has become a solution.

We also spoke about the transfer of empire and how the state will increasingly be ruled by celebrity personas. The aura of the celebrity fuels feelings of inadequacy and encourages increased spending which oils capitalism and silences multiple voices.

I realized that advanced capitalism and social democracy are inherently at odds with each other. The day after Thanksgiving is known as both Black Friday and the National Day of Listening. Black Friday, a way to lubricate the capitalist economic and social system, had extensive media coverage while the National Day of Listening, more akin to a democratic forum, had only one article from the major press.

Perhaps with time this will change.

Stuck Elevator reading

2009-11-19T01:41:00.000-08:00

Stuck Elevator

workshop starring Steven Eng

Thursday, 4:30-6PM
19 November 2009

Pearl Studios NYC
500 8th Avenue
New York NY 10018

Free and open to the public
Limited seating – please RSVP
Email apa.rsvp@nyu.edu or call (212) 992-9653

About the Show
Prompted by the real-life story of Ming Kuang Chen, Stuck Elevator is an operatic solo performance about a Chinese restaurant deliveryman trapped in an elevator for three days.

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Music by Byron Au Yong
Words by Aaron Jafferis

Director David Herskovits
Music Director Alden Terry

Violinist Cynthia Marcus
Cellist/Pianist Alden Terry
Percussionist James Mack
Sound Designer Kate Marvin

Stage/Production Manager Laura Wilson
Assistant Director John Kurzynowski

Creativity Workshops

2009-11-01T12:19:00.000-08:00

Up next, I teach two creativity workshops for Portland Taiko. This is an expansion of a workshop I taught at the North American Taiko Conference in Los Angeles over the summer.

The workshop is called Seven Ways to Develop Material. Here's a description:

Do you have great ideas but need to know how to turn your thoughts into a composition? Learn seven ways to expand craft and creativity to create compelling music. These tools can help produce work that takes risks, develops material, and engages the audience. Together, we will expand the space between our ears to complete unfinished works or refine existing catastrophes.

There will be two workshops. The first workshop introduces seven ways to approach creating a musical performance. In between the two workshops, students will use these tools to develop musical material. In the second workshop, four to five participants will share their developed material.

In preparation for the first workshop, I've asked participants to come with:

A list of 20 ways music is used. For example one way would be wedding music.
A list of 20 audience types. For example one type would be farmers.
One musical idea you are working on, with, around, or in. The idea should be on paper and can be drawings, words, musical notation, or a combination of any/all of the above.

Seven Ways to Develop Material will cover the following:

Function What and who is the music for?
Concept How does the work access imagination?
Structure Does the form promote the concept?
Time Where does the performance take the audience?
Timbre When do in/significant moments happen?
Filter How does the music breathe?
Notation How can the work be remembered/documented most effectively?

Unclogging Gutters

2009-10-29T04:39:00.000-07:00

As I clear autumn leaves from clogging the sewer drain outside my home, I am reminded of all the music-making that needs to happen in preparation for Three Seasons to premiere at On the Boards in mid-January 2010:

Finish my musical analysis of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons
Meet with Stuart McLeod to figure out an amplified percussion set-up that can appear and disappear seamlessly with the dance
Touch base with Baroque violinist Ingrid Matthews, costume designer Michael Cepress, and choreographer Olivier Wevers

Even though it is much more fun to gather leaves in the rain and hang out with the chickens, I know that once I start transferring my sketches and connecting with collaborators, my figurative clogged gutter will flow with musical creativity.

Tristan Uhl recently wrote about the Whim W'him launch where a Three Seasons musical sketch presented:

For Whim W’Him’s debut production Olivier has chosen to address not only the unpredictability and fragility of our lives but also, the changing of the seasons. The title for the debut is Three Seasons — an apt beginning for a project that thrives on unpredictability.

The piece has been scored Composer Byron Au Yong, who has created a profoundly moving and modern interpretation of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. The musical instruments used almost confront nature with man by melding sounds including but not limited to, a violin, the rhythmic rustling of leaves and — my favorite — a high heel. The overall effect makes it hard to distinguish the traditional instruments from the more novel ones.

SubterfugeSeattle.com has the full article plus photos. Thanks for the nice write-up. High heels are my new favorite instrument too.

Music with light bulbs and leaves

2009-10-21T06:03:00.000-07:00

percussion of leaves

Last Saturday, Whim W'Him held a benefit for the launch of Olivier Wever's new company. The debut work, to be premiered at On the Boards in January 2010, will be the Three Seasons prompted by Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

I've been sketching ideas drawn from Vivaldi's use of musical gestures. His phrases for violin and strings represent birds, thunder, and other sounds heard in nature. This prompts me to think about the nature of "nature."

Each of Olivier's nine dancers have an object they cannot live without. These include high heels, pillows, and light bulbs. I wonder if these factory-produced items affect a listener's notions of what is natural.

How do man-made and nature sounds inhabit the world?
In the Digital Age, is the notion of nature broadened?
What is the sound of light bulbs with leaves?

The music was created in collaboration with Sebastian Lange on amplified/processed violin, and percussionists Stuart McLeod and James Whetzel on amplified leaves, water bowl, pillows, high heels, water phone, and light bulbs. Jeff Walker recorded the performance and yours truly edited the sample above.

Stuck Elevator 2009 Demo

2009-10-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

Aaron and I are busy revising Stuck Elevator for two readings in New York in mid-November. To that end, we created a demo from the September reading. This was recorded in the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at the Tisch School of the Arts by audio engineer Mark Aiken.

&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;a href="http://hearbyron.bandcamp.com/album/stuck-elevator"&amp;gt;Stuck Elevator by Byron Au Yong &amp;amp;amp; Aaron Jafferis&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Already one of the songs, A River Running, is cut from the November version of Stuck Elevator. I am fond of the music, so I included it as part of this online demo.

Core Values

2009-09-24T04:10:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, the faculty and students in the Dance Department at Cornish College of the Arts discussed the core values listed below. I find these nine keywords to be a clarifying reminders when lost as an artist within academia.

Of course these are words on the screen, to actualize them Professor Michele Miller had students come up with "We will..." statements; action plans generated during the discussion to make these abstract words come alive. Here's an example of an action statements that a group of students wrote:

We will practice the idea of respect by taking care of our bodies in dance and in health, practicing courtesy to our teachers, musicians, fellow students, and dancers, while also self-encouraging ourselves to take on the challenge of technique.

Here are keywords and thoughts generated by the dance faculty:

Excellence

Strive for excellence. Challenge yourself to develop to your fullest potential in every aspect of your work: physically, intellectually, emotionally, imaginatively, and artistically. Take the risks necessary for growth, embracing failures as an essential path to success. Invest your whole self in your work for the reward of knowing you have done your best. Commit to a process of change. Support extraordinary efforts, your own and others.

Exploration

Explore your body, cultivating awareness. Explore all possible connections to the world and embrace the breadth and variety available to you in dance. Learn about dance through live performance, film, videos, books, electronic media, and other resources. Explore your potential as a generative artist as well as an interpretive one, reaching beyond your discipline to embrace collaboration, interdisciplinarity and multicultural perspectives.

Inquiry and Reflection

Be curious. Seek out the widest range of educational resources that are available to you within this college and the world at large. Question deeply your relationship to your art form and your own artistic purpose. Take time to reflect about what you have learned in order to integrate what you learn into your work as an artist. Synthesize information from multiple sources.

Openness

Seek and welcome feedback. Be willing to evaluate your own work unsparingly. Develop the ability to generously, constructively, and specifically critique the work of your fellow artists, and connect your critique of others to your own ongoing development.

Responsibility

Assume responsibility for your learning and progress by providing your own discipline and motivation. Take advantage of all learning opportunities, within the college and in the outside community. Develop a diligent and consistent approach to your education. Take responsibility to care for your self: body, mind and soul. Embody: physically manifest your knowledge and intentions.

Trust

Trust your faculty and their knowledge. Trust your body and its wisdom, your process of growth and change. Trust your ability to succeed. Trust your peers and their creative energy. Dare to be authentic, dancing truthfully from who you are.

Respect

Learn and practice respect for yourself, your peers, your instructors, your dance musicians, all Cornish staff, your artistic community. Respect your art form, the process of creation, the space in which you do your work, the audience who receives your work, the history of dance, its traditions and legacy. Respect your body, developing a healthy approach to your art form. Respect cultural diversity, learning from those whose experiences differ from yours.

Humility

Be humble. Practice empathy, patience and compassion. Recognize that in dance we commit to being lifelong learners, always students of our art form. Be of service to the work and people involved in the work.

Passion

Remember why you are here. Celebrate your love of dance and the joy that it brings you. Share that joy with others and support them in their passions. Draw inspiration from others’ growth and challenges.

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Students were given the keywords and grouped into discussion teams of five or six where they focused on one or two keywords for 20 minutes. They then presented their thoughts to the larger group. I was surprised by how many of their ideas resonated with the faculty's.

Kitty, the chair of the department, commented at the end that the keywords and their personalized meanings reminded her that Cornish was a place for practicing artists. Alex, a junior in the department, said that it was a great way to kick-off the start of the school year.

MoCA Reading

2009-09-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

The new Museum of Chinese in America holds its grand opening tonight. I think fondly of their new home designed by Maya Lin. Last Friday, the Stuck Elevator Workshop Reading was held in MoCA's contemporary gallery space which features the Here and Now: Chinese Artists in New York exhibition.

Paul's percussion includes bicycle wheel & scrap metal

Stuck Elevator musicians rehearsed in front of Xu Bing's (!) work while construction workers hammered together shelves in the adjacent room and the alarm-system flashed lights and bells. During the rehearsal I kept repeating "It Could Be Worse," one of the songs from the show, to myself.

The Workshop Reading hosted by MoCA and the A/P/A Institute later that night was followed by a lively feedback session moderated by Jack Tchen. Musician/Scholar Cynthia Wang wrote insightful impressions of the reading on her blog.

The week-long whirlwind of composing, rehearsing, and performing was fantastic thanks to a dedicated team. Aaron and I worked with director Tamilla Woodard, music director/cellist Alden Terry, performer Steven Eng, violinist Cynthia Marcus, and percussionist Paul Kikuchi.

Steven, Cynthia & Alden

Helping with logistics were stage/production manager Edna Lee Figueroa, and numerous A/P/A Institute staff that included Laura Chen-Schultz, Alexandra Chang, and Ruby Gomez. A special thanks goes out to the MoCA staff who allowed us to have the Stuck Elevator reading a few days before the momentous opening tonight. MoCA's Beatrice Chen and Cynthia Lee rock.

Now, I'm back in Seattle picking pears, taking care of the chickens, weeding my vegetable patch, teaching at Cornish, composing for Whim W'him's event this October, and thinking of the revisions for the November Stuck Elevator readings.

Snakehead book

2009-07-16T10:01:00.000-07:00

The book Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream is released next week. It already has 21 reviews on Amazon.com. I look forward to reading author Patrick Radden Keefe's perspective on undocumented Chinese immigrants as Aaron and I continue work on Stuck Elevator.

Risk/Reward Tech Ordeal

2009-06-29T05:26:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, percussionist/instrument builder Paul Kikuchi and I performed Kuang in a Stuck Elevator excerpt as part of Hand2Mouth's Risk/Reward New Performance Festival at the Imago Theatre in Portland. The sound cues were totally messed up, leaving Paul and I holding the show together while gritting our teeth. When Kuang opens the fortune cookie at the end of the excerpt, I breathed a sigh of release glad to be finished with the ordeal.

This is what the fortune read: "Your mind will make your body rich."

My mind stayed focused while my body tensed during this difficult performance. Even though I was forced to sing over the wrong recordings, silently wondering how to tell the tech director and sound board operator to turn off the audio, the Portland audience was highly responsive.

The Risk/Reward Festival has a convivial feel and the larger stage helped the sense of isolation for this excerpt. Thanks to Hand2Mouth for hosting this version of Stuck Elevator and to Paul for being my onstage comrade as we were trapped performing in technical difficulties.

Moving and Funny Stuck Elevator

2009-06-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from Seattlest review of NW New Works by Jeremy Barker

Byron Au Yong's short opera about a Chinese delivery guy stuck in a New York elevator manages to be both moving and funny. Performed by Yong and musical collaborator Paul Kikuchi on a non-traditional set of percussion instruments, the action unfolds on a tiny platform representing an elevator, where Kuang has become trapped after delivering Chinese food to an apartment. Lacking good English and a proper work visa, as the hours unfold, Kuang is tortured by self-doubt and emasculation--he's afraid of being mocked, afraid of being deported, and frightened of having to return to his wife a failure. But the painfully emotional parts are interspersed between comic bits, such as the hip hop song his bladder sings him in his sleep as he struggles not to piss himself.