experimental dance

New Trio Allsymt to play in Kaohsiung

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Trio Allsymt was to have its first performance under this name tomorrow, but something tragic and totally unexpected happened: our dear friend Arnaud Lechat  passed away on the morning of September 19 while being out for a walk. He inspired many of us with his playing, composing, organising, talking, thinking.  We won’t have our first concert as a trio under our new name. But Arnaud left us a website which he put together last weekend, looking back at how we,”Three Free Guys” played together, without the name Allsymt: https://allsymt.wordpress.com/.

Arnaud, come and listen tomorrow, we play in your honour. Bon voyage dans l’éternel, salut!

For the concert we found Lin Hsiao Feng willing to replace Arnaud.

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In 2021 Taipei pianist Lee Shih-Yang formed a new trio with wind instrument / percussion player Arnaud Lechat and vocal performer Mark van Tongeren, playing frequently in the greater Taipei area. Independently of each other, Lee and Lechat had over a decade of collaborations with dancers behind them. Van Tongeren played and recorded in music-theatre projects in unusual acoustic and architectural settings since the 1990s.

From 2024, the trio Lee – Lechat – van Tongeren continues as ALLsymt, an acronym of the musicians’ initials.

For the exhibition 高美館30周年鉅獻 英國泰德現代美術館《CAPTURING THE MOMENT 瞬間──穿越繪畫與攝影之旅 in the Kaohsiung Fine Arts Museum ALLsymt created new pieces. They use the museum lobby, the passage to the art works it holds, to interrogate the relationship between photography and painting, realism and simulacrum, makers and perceivers. They create a musical lens enabling visitors to “hear” a specific selection of paintings on exhibit, by questioning the complex relationships between acoustic event and situated, individual perception. Some of the techniques they use to achieve this effect are spatial projection of the sound by acoustic means, moving sound sources, and extremely slow and silent passages.

The paintings that feature in Allsymt’s interpretations are, in order of appearance:

Piece 1 Feeling the Space. Not based on painting

Piece 2 based on The Sea by Sugimoto

Piece 3 based on Motifs by Warhol

Piece 4 based on Face by Bacon

Piece 5 based on Aunt Marianne by Richter

Piece 6 based on A Sudden Gust of Wind by Jeff Wall

Piece 7 Interfering with space. Not based on painting

For more about the musicians you can check out the special Allsymt page. Their current project draws from their ecclectic range of muliti-disciplinary backgrounds and involves dancer Chan Ya-Chun. She recently graduated from the  University of Taipei department of dance and was first invited by Lechat for collaborative performances.  Currently, she is a freelance performer, dance art creator and performance art teacher. She likes to explore her own possibilities through experimentation and improvisation in dance art. At the same time, she continues to collaborate with different choreographers in Taiwan and abroad and takes the opportunity to dance and create in different places.

 

詹雅淳 Chan Ya Chun

臺中人,北漂青年。畢業於臺北市立大學舞蹈系。現為自由接案表演者、舞蹈藝術創作者、表演藝術老師,在舞蹈中喜歡實驗與嘗試各種可能性。

近期經歷為參與2024年臺北藝穗節共創作品《Lady W & Lady M》與2022年的《童話故事 人生事故》。於2023年獲得菁霖美國舞蹈節獎學金,同年與音樂家Arnaud Lechat Mark Van Tongeren共同演出《夢境》等等。

Lechat and van Tongeren have already collaborated with Zhan for the project Le Rêve, based on the painting of the same name by Henri Rousseau. A recording of that project’s music is due to be released in October 2024 and is available for pre-ordering on Bandcamp.

Le Rêve by Henri Rousseau (1910)

Album cover, Le Rêve by Lechat / van Tongeren  (2024)

 

Exhibition:

高美館30周年鉅獻 英國泰德現代美術館

CAPTURING THE MOMENT

瞬間──穿越繪畫與攝影之旅

in the Kaohsiung Fine Arts Museum.

The performance takes place on Friday evening, September 20 at 19:30.

 

 

 

ALLsymt

Third installment of Nordic

Right now I am taking part in Ming-Hwa Yeh’s third version of a piece we began working on around August 2014. The resulting performance at that time was called Nordic and in its new version, Dreamin’ MoNTUE, it has become an installation with frequent live performances by Ming-Hwa, pianist A-Kwan and myself. Right now my appearances have mainly been for one visitor at an appointed time.

So far this is a very interesting experiment, where my previous role as a sort of wandering local spirit or genius loci and shaman, receives a more open-form performance component: I basically do whatever I fancy, from talking and singing to playing and just watching.

Performances last till early May and I will resume my participation after coming back from Shanghai next week.

Weblink to the Museum of National Taiwan University of Education.

Here are some of the first pictures.

December 5/6: Nordic by Ming-Hwa Yeh

 

We are embarking on an epic journey this weekend in a 3-hour multi-media/dance performance entitled Nordic, created and choreographed by Ming-Hwa Yeh. Nordic is part of the 3-week festival Points on Stage at Songyue Lab, Songshan Cultural and Creative Park. We began working on this piece in autumn 2014, and presented a work-in-progress in December 2014, with dancer En Chen, who now joined Cloudgate and is replaced by Wu-kang Chen.

Ming-Hwa writes:

Nordic is a work inspired by Natural, the moment I was moved and shaken by the unlimited power of nature, the unity of man and nature. Human beings live in the realm of nature, we are constantly surrounded by it and interact with it. But somehow in the busy bustling life, we are so easily to forget.”

The current version of  Nordic is a long, immersive meditation on this relationship between man and nature. Its dramatic arch moves between extremes of the quiet and un-spectacular (like a vast landscape with nothing much happening but a gently blowing breeze) and bursts of activity, overpowering and aggresive (like an avalanche). Much revolves around the deep structures of human experience throughout its evolution: those of space and time. It confronts us with the naked, and sometimes perplexing truths of our lives unfolding in time, and our bodies moving in space.

The spectators move freely in the space: they can walk, stand, sit or lie down as they like. The music is partly electronic, created by SHENG, partly live, by Mark van Tongeren, on voice and various instruments. Video forms an integral part of several sections of the performance and was created by Adrianne Chiu.

Choreographer/ Ming-Hwa Yeh
Performer/ Ming-Hwa Yeh, Wu-kang Chen, Mark van Tongeren, 晟│SHENG
Stage Designer/ Yu-Ting Tung
Lighting Designer/ Kuo-chien Hung
Video Designer/ Adrianne Chiu

Time|12/5(六) 16:00、12/6(日)16:00
Where|Songshan Cultural and Creative Park /LAB創意實驗室(東向製菸工廠2樓)
Tickets|NT $500 (http://ppt.cc/Ctkdm) or (http://goo.gl/forms/kMOQwPiZB7)

編舞/概念 葉名樺
戲劇顧問 鄒之牧
演出者 葉名樺、陳武康、Mark van Tongeren、晟│SHENG
人聲泛唱 Mark van Tongeren
裝置設計 董育廷
音樂設計 晟│SHENG
燈光設計 郭建宏
影像設計 Adrianne Chiu
聲音技術 杜易昂
視覺攝影 李欣哲
演出紀錄 陳冠宇
專案行政 陳春春
陪伴創作顧問 高俊宏(視覺藝術家)

活動場次|12/5(六) 16:00、12/6(日)16:00
活動地點|LAB創意實驗室(東向製菸工廠2樓)
參加辦法|購票入場,票價500元,兩廳院之友、學生9折。
購票網址|http://www.artsticket.com.tw/CKSCC200

*宣傳片拍攝剪輯 陳冠宇