All of a sudden, Arnaud Lechat passed away on September 19, in the midst of many fine projects he was working on. Not long before, Arnaud had launched several websites, one for this album project (https://lerevemusic.tumblr.com/ ), another for our ALLsymt trio.
His widow immediately decided the album should still be released, but we experienced some delays.
We expect the physical album to be ready on November 7, the way Arnaud prepared and intended it.
For now, do not order the album on Arnaud’s Bandcamp while we are sorting out if and how his account there can be continued.
We will soon add a button to buy the album directly and create a new post, but you can also follow the procedure explained below.
It is time to round up some support for our next album project. Below you can read how to suport our album, but first some more on the genesis of this music and dance piece. Over the last 12 months or so I played quite a few iterations of Arnaud Lechat’s wonderful cycle of compositions called Le Rêve, based on the painting by Henri Rousseau. Arnaud recorded his own parts for flutes, percussion and voice on one afternoon, a year ago or so. He sent me the tracks and soon after I came over to play parts on voice, flutes, mouth-harps and effects, the way he had it in mind. It fitted seamlessly so we did several performances with a dancer. Each time it was different. Some things got better, some things failed or were less interesting. Each time we had Zhan Yachun dancing with us.
The new challenge was to play the music without her dancing. We tried several times. Each time it was different, very different. But the shape became sharp. This year on Fools’ Day, we committed our audio-only version to the recording machine of French recording expert Yannick Dauby. The result was beyond our expectation. We are really excited to put this album into the world: for musicians this is always a special process and event. And not without obstacles. I have had long discussions with Arnaud about the question: to print or not to print? Fewer and fewer people have CD players. Even the car, which was the last bulwark of CD players for many people, is changing to audio and video streaming now. For decades – what I say? – for a hundred or more years, selling records was a means of generating an income for musicians.
The 1910 painting by Henri Rousseau which inspired Arnaud to write his new work
With that epoch coming to an end, one of the ‘traditional’ ways for a musician or record label to recuperate the cost of recording, desiging, printing, distributing and promoting an album is challenging. For 20 years or so we enjoyed the ability to record cheaper, in high quality, and produce small print-runs of CDs. But now physical things are harder to sell. Arnaud tried making an album with a beautiful booklet with poems and art work and a download code – no CD inside. It did not work: buyers still wanted a CD, not just the booklet with download code. But as time goes on, even our CDs are selling fewer and fewer at concerts.
And yet, being musicians, produce we must. The physical CD, a digipack or something similar in carton, without booklet, is taking shape (see the top of the message to get an impression of where the design is going at the moment).
Watch an excerpt from one of the live performances we did of this album, when it was still primarily a music & dance performance (which it also will be: we will do sections of Le Rêve in an entirely new setting in the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts in september).
I will spare you the details of why and how we came to the conclusion to put out a physical album in 2024. You can read that in my newsletter if you like (sign up if you like). Here is how you can support us, in order of urgency (most urgent support comes first):
1. Pre-order the album in the making from us, so that we can get part of the production cost together instead of investing our savings. Pay to my bank account or Paypal (see below).
2. Pre-order the album when we (Arnaud and Mark) put it on our Bandcamp pages. Bandcamp is a fantastic medium which pays a very large share to musicians. Compared to Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube it is a musician’s heaven, and a place where fans can express their interest in a very concrete way. Bandcamp is right when it claims that “artists receive 80-85% of every dollar a fan spends” and they pay very soon too, not after 6 or 12 months.
3. Buy the album when it is out, from us or from Bandcamp, or at a concert. You might never play the actual CD, we know, but you can get a download code and we can plan our next album, because people like you bought this one!
One last option: if there hides a philantrope in you, if you like to support the arts and other causes, and if you can easily spend some more, consider to pay more than just the album price. Basically, this is like tipping a waiter, or even sponsoring a project. Bandcamp too has this function to pay more than the set price, and in the last two years I noticed every once in a while fans do indeed pay extra! Every bit counts and the gesture itself is already very encouraging. If you pay more than the album price we have more chances to do more promotion, put out more albums, etc. If you want to support in a more substantial way and are interested in return-favors (a dedication in the album sleeve, a concert at home, etc.), please let us know by sending an email.
Pre-order Le Rêve now!
1. Make your choice:
CD with download code € 15,- + worldwide shipping € 10,- = € 25,-
CD with download code € 15,- + europe shipping € 7,- = € 22,-
CD with download code € 15,- + Netherlands shipping € 5,- = € 20,-
CD with download code NT$ 500,- + Taiwan shipping NT$ 80,- = NT$ 580
Ask us for special rates, for example sending to Japan from Taiwan.
Send a message to info@fusica.nl and cc to Hsi-Yin (hsiyin724@gmail.com) with ‘DreamOrder’ in the subject header or title. Make sure to leave your name + full address + phone (optional) and also let us know your banking name / last 3 digits (for Taiwan).
4. In the planned release month September or October we will send you the album as soon as it is out!
At the end of 2019, in fact around the Winter Solstice on December 21, we did the first Voice Yoga Retreat here in Taiwan. A wonderful recollection of the best stuff I have done during my 7 seven years of weekly Voice Yoga classes. It was beyond expectation: fantastic weather, great location, wonderful students, and a great three-person-strong core team (Sunny Chen, Jackal Mei, me) to take care of everything.
Most of all, we all experienced a nice flow between yogic and other exercises, sound and body improvisations, eating cakes and drinking Jackal’s homebrewn coffee, meditating, listening, chanting, learning about my methods and ‘vision.’ People came from all over the place and all walks of life, and most were new to Voice Yoga.
One student, Guang Guang, wrote an excellent report in Chinese about everything we did, in Chinese. I reproduce it here, with an autotranslation at the bottom of this page. Jackal Mei made some great photos, and there’s a couple of myself too. Many thanks to Guang Guang and Jackal for the words and images, and to Sunny !
We’ll do another Voice Yoga Retreat later this year on the beautiful, relaxed East Coast of Taiwan, where the pace is slow, weather seems to be nearly always good, birds sing loudly and the ocean is never far away. Get on the maillinglist for updates.
Because there are always many good friends around me, then put into a path. at the beginning, the leaves share the voice with me, and let me plant seeds in my heart…
So recently, I went to experience a sound yoga,
The teacher who taught is the mark of the pan-Yin.
I love his selfless and loving sharing
And take care and feel every one of us
When the first class said
The voices made here are all about the moment.
There is no bad right or wrong, every voice is right…
Let me feel free to feel at ease
First night
Mark is very natural to mix everyone’s voices together in space, let each other’s strange partner, quickly flowing, just two hours, my whole body is dancing.
/ breathing practice
A lot of things to feel in this practice,
I am also practicing to practice the feeling
Where to breathe, where to go, expand or shrink…
Never thought about what happened so naturally,
But these two recent courses are reminding this thing, that is the moment.
/ vowel triangle
Love to play with the vowel triangle
But I will find myself very short in this,
Will also want to work with other people
Make your own rhythm between perfection and coordination
Oh ~ suck ~
Oh ~ Ah ~ one
/ the ocean of sound
With the imitation of a natural voice,
Let your voice be thrown into the ocean
The Forest, the pond, the water, the swamp, the swamp, the sky, everything, the sound of the earth.
Who likes to share quietly, she feels like she’s shiny, so let the voice come out on her own…
So conscious body, I’m still on my way to practice
/ deep listening
Voice together in the outdoors,
Listen to the sound of the space and follow
Listen to the sound of not, create
In the way.
Made a contemporary music
I love this fusion melody.
/ surprise
Surround a circle and make a few voices with Mark,
Close your eyes and close your eyes
A few sounds without rules
Then slowly,
Mark puts the nissan into the circle
Close your eyes in the circle and enjoy the melody
Mark is singing faster and faster
Getting more and more specific
Starting to find something wrong
Open your eyes and look at mark
He smiled at me
She has already learned it early.
Yes, it’s really what I thought
The students laugh at one after one.
Mulberry finally realized the chú le of this party
I am in tears to accept everyone’s singing
This moment is so touching
So beautiful ~ so beautiful ~
/ Winter Solstice Lights out
Surround the candles with a peaceful night, close your eyes with the feeling of stars, the sound of nature that surround us, like the stars that have fallen in the grass, the sound of everything.
/ sana ceremony
Classmate Blues on the night for you all the night
First experience ceremony, the sana drum burst out my whole body current, under the protection of the guardian spirit, I felt the process, the jungle, the speed, the dark spin, then the snake that came out, finally let myself slowly pull away, see one Deer stop
Lithuania was called by the drum of the drum to run
It also dance, the whole field, sitting or moving.
Every world, fantasy world ~
/ vowel
I am deeply aware of my voice.
Where did the sound go in the resonance body?
Mark said
Where the body and the sound will be resonance
But but
Ideas can also let the voice go where you want him to go
At the end everyone’s voice shakes,
All have different discoveries
This makes me think the voice is so funny
Everyone’s body feels so unique
/ breathing rhythm
The difference in the length of breathing,
Can also be a beautiful song
I’m enjoying this chapter too
The sum of each instrument
It’s a movement of life.
/ Pan-voice solo
One afternoon mark singing for everyone
Sitting and lying free
It was a cloudy afternoon.
While a pan-Tone Melody keeps on the these
All I hear is the voice of an angel
Right now
The Golden sunshine outside the window goes through the pink curtains
Angel Light gentle on mark
I didn’t have time to take pictures of that one
But in my mind
My whole body is dancing
/ eight sound
Everyone’s voice is so unique and nice
There is the singing of the old soul in the voice of the old soul
Thinking of her guardian spirit grandma and love
It’s my turn to kick the card.
Is the flower God singing!!!
Clear and beautiful, so touching
When it was my turn, my head wanted to work
Later I told myself to forget it
What makes the voice is what is
Even though I know my voice is not even where I’m going
My Voice God is helping me find the level
Went for a couple of semitone
I just went to the place where I should go.
I can say too
That’s my precision in control of my semitone (allocated ~
After three days of playing
Very Loose, slow and amazing body all kinds of sour
I didn’t expect it. It was just a voice.
The body has all kinds of pull
But remember that Xin Xin said very well
(but I forgot what she said XD)
But after she said, I just had a moment.
Lala also shared mark in mechanical noise
Find out the rhythm of its regular rhythm
Make noise not just noise
Harvest a lot in three days,
Maybe I’m still in the aftershocks and feel slowly
The only part that knows what I know most
Probably I’m not that relaxing myself yet
The voice is too strange to me after all
But after these process
It’s better to lose the established impression of the voice in my childhood
The Color of the voice is so wide and infinite
Tell yourself, it’s just to play, go play!
Sound Yoga is yoga and impromptu
He is more than a voice,
Is the one that makes the heart, spirit and body
Thank you Yu Chih Lin for taking me on the pool
Thank you Xiaoying Ye for the link
Thank you Jackal Mei for the invitation XD
Thanks Mark Van Tongeren
Leading the experience of my experience
Had me so much fun on this sound tour…
Taipei Dance Circle (光環舞集) continues to bring their piece Lending Ear to Dance, Eye to Sound to theatres across Taiwan. I will join them in one of the three choreographies. Read more about our collaboration and co-founder Liu Shaolu in a previous post here.
Program: “Lending Ear To Dance, Eye To Sound” 聽舞觀聲
Dancers:
姚凱蕾 Yao Kai-Lei
蕭靈鳳 Siew Lin-Fong
王憲彬 Wang Hsien-Pin
陳英豪 Chen Ying-Hao
Tour to:
Taidong
Saturday 3/5 19:30 Performance Hall of Taitung County Government Bureau of Cultural Affair
Taichung
Wednesday 3/23 19:00 Providence University Zhi Shan Hall Stadium
Tamshui (Saturday May 1, to be confirmed)
Hsinchu
Saturday 5/27 19:30 Performance Hall of Cultural Bureau, Hsinchu County
Sanxia
Saturday 6/18 19:30 Performing hall of Xinzhuang Culture and Arts Center
Yingge
Friday 9/23 13:00
Yingge Technical High School
Read a Taipei Times article about the program here.
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
This week Taipei Dance Circle (光環舞集) presents a new evening program with three new pieces, a little over a year after founder Liou Shaw-lu (劉紹爐) passed away. I got to know Shaw-lu over a decade ago when I was teaching at the Taipei National University of the Arts in Kuandu, not far from Taipei Dance Circle’s base in Bali, on the opposite side of the Tamshui river. These classes were organised by Prof. Chung Mingder, then dean of the Department of Theatre, and attracted also people from outside the university (artists outside the school like Shaw-lu, or nuns from the Huayen monastery). To anyone who knew Shaw-lu it is needless to say I immediately I liked him: he was such a likable, positive soul, constantly curious, constantly creative, or ‘creating’ to say it more actively. When I see him with my mind’s eye, I see him moving: moving his hands, his head, his torso, expressing whatever he wanted to say or responding to whatever he saw with his full body. And of course, he did not just move: he always moved beautifully, elegantly, from somewhere deep inside himself, and at the same time summoning forces much bigger than himself. He absorbed the environment and reflected it back with his body, with his mind and also with his voice. He was very passionate about learning to use the voice in new ways. He felt and saw from the perspective of dance, what I felt and saw from the perspective of music: the possibility of integrating sound and body.
Shaw-La, taimu, Mark some 10 years ago
He followed my classes, but of course I learned as much from him. His presence as a dancer helped me feel comfortable to do all kinds of unusual physical exercises in order to experiment with the sound of the voice. I remember we rehearsed and performed a piece when the semester of the ‘official’ theatre class (I think it was called Overtone singing and Meditation) was about to finish. All students presented their own work, and I did a piece with Shaw-lu. It was a delight to improvise with him, even though I felt quite clumsy doing the physical work next to someone so flexible, so much in a constant, physical flow. Shao-lu and I also presented something together at Huayen Monastery, who at that time were interested in the integration of overtones in body-mind practices.
It was a great honour for me to receive the invitation from Taipei Dance Circle’s co-founder Maura Yang earlier this year, to collaborate with the dancers now that co-founder and choreographer Shaw-lu passed away. A challenge, too, since we all started work on integrating movement and sound: the piece we created, involves all four dancers and myself on stage, doing both sound and movement. After throwing ourselves into each other territories (they singing/sounding, me dancing/moving), we found it necessary to take a step back and stay more within our own disciplines. It is a long and difficult, but rewarding process to move out of your comfort-zone: I think we all shifted into this new territory, and we are searching still for the right mode. Tonight is the première, but the last adjustments are still being made.
In Last year’s dance projects I did with Horse (驫舞劇場: Play Dead / 裝死) and then with Yeh Ming Hwa (葉名樺 : Nordic / 寂靜敲門), I was first purely a musician, onstage but separated from the dancers, then a musician/actor sharing the space with the dancers Will that turn out to be the better option? I hope both are possible, though there is no doubt that these three pieces are a world apart.
Yeh Ming-Hwa’s piece Nordic (Photo Lee Hsin-Che)
In order to commemorate Shaw-lu, we are singing a Hakka song. As Yao Kai-Lei (姚凱蕾) one of the dancers of TDC, explained today for Hakka TV, Shaw-lu loved old Hakka mountain songs, which used to be sung not as concert pieces, but in daily life by the tea planters in the old days. Hakka people just sang them while working, sometimes over long distances in the mountains, improvising phrases (and no doubt, also texts). I am not sure Shaw-lu actually heard that when he was young …. But taimu (Prof Chung) encouraged us to sing old songs in this project, and since many of the songs that we tried would not work for the group as a whole, it was natural to chose Lao Shan Ge (old mountain song).
About the other vocal parts, I wrote this for the program booklet:
In Western art music and dance, sound and movements are rigorously controlled by what they present and what is taught, from one generation to the next. Not only that; it is also controlled by what is not presented, by that which is controlled by expelling it. Musicians are basically taught to play their instrument from a still position, and not to make unwanted movements. The accepted movements that we see from a pianist or violinist are highly stylised and may be likened to a kind of choreography. Many musicians and dancers alike were taught not only to control their movements but also to suppress the sounds that might accompany those movements. The presence of unwanted sounds almost amounts to a taboo, both for dancers and for musicians. There may be valid practical and also esthetic reasons for it, but are we not robbing dancers or musicians of some of their most powerful means of expression when we subjugate the performing body to these unwritten rules? What do we find, for example, when we allow the performing body to freely make noise, make sound, make music, and when we allow the musicking body to move or to dance?
These questions are not new, and have been explored from various angles in the past decades, not in the least in many of the late works of Liu Shao Lu, who was deeply committed to integrating sound with movement. Yet unwritten performance rules run deep in the veins of artists, be they musicians or dancers. It is hard for the dancer to work the muscles of the vocal cords and mouth just like she is used to work the muscles of torso, arms and legs. And it is hard for the musician to really see himself moving, and to move freely beyond the need of musical gestures. Trained in one art form, we are partly blinded by the aesthetic language we are most familiar with. How can we re-integrate these two seemingly different languages of dance and music with each other? Can we find some more or less natural meeting points? Is it even possible, perhaps, to really ‘forget’ our own disciplines and create something from a common bodily language, becoming sound and movement at the same time?
Program: “Lending Ear To Dance, Eye To Sound” 聽舞觀聲
Dancers:
姚凱蕾 Yao Kai-Lei
蕭靈鳳 SIEW LIN-FONG
王憲彬 WANG HSIEN-PIN
陳英豪 Chen Ying-Hao
Five performances tonight until Sunday (Sept 10-13) in Experimental Theatre 實驗劇場 / National Theatre 國家戲劇院
After that: tour to HsinChu (October 16), New Taipei City (November 8), Taoyuan City (November 14) Pingtung City (November 21), Hsinchu county (November 28).
Read a Taipei Times about the new program article here.
Since autumn of 2013 Shih-Yang Lee, Yu-Long Chen and myself are working with the experimental dancers of Horse. The performance will be showing in the National Theater in Taipei beginning of May, together with another show by Shu-Yi and Dancers. There was a press event last week, and I just heard the first performance is already sold out, and there are less than 90 tickets for the second one. So don’t wait to order your tickets if you want to see something special!
