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July 29, 2004
Time for improvisation
Today was quite an exciting day. Starting with the opening of the Forth Annual Shakuhachi Festival. I was having a tough time getting out of my place because of the millions things I needed to get done for my table at the venders section AND the performance with my group SLANT at the openning concert tonight. As I was half way to the subway, already late for registration, I realized I forgot the keys to our rehearsal space where my group was going to have an emergency rehearsal in the afternoon. One of the members had to drop out for an emergency so we had to figure out how to fill some missing parts. More lost minutes on the trip home.
At 1:30, after registration and settling in to my table where I laid out my shakuhachi, I realized I hadn't eaten all day. My brother goes out for a sandwhich. He comes back late because he's just visiting from out of town and got lost around the NYU area. He came back with a corn beef on rye. I get to the rehearsal late. We fix the piece...somewhat. The performance is in about in about an hour.
At 4pm, we get through the sound check and find that there's no time to tech. And next thing we know, the audience is pouring in. Rick and I don't get a chance to warm up. At 4:30, my stomach is growling and I decide I should eat some of the sandwhich.
Al Ramos kicked off the evening with a mighty Yamagoe. All the performers before us were great, each commitited to the shakuhachi and in the moment. Then came our moment. David Wheeler gave us a great intro and we made our way to the stage with our bit, screaming "leak" and carrying long PVC pipes. We were dressed in janitors' coveralls. Once onstage and about to kick in the piece, our very important prop, a hack saw, broke in half.
We had a great piece worked out where we would play rythym while making PVC digeridoos and shakuhachi. It was going to be great. We had a song where we were going to work with overtones and harmony between dig and shak. But the hack saw ended all that very quickly. I made an announcement that that wasn't going to happen so we'll improvise for the next 10 minutes. That got a laugh, which was good since our work has a lot of humor. I looked at Rick he looked at me. I saw the kid in a candy store look in his eyes. Then he just blew in the 10 foot PVC tube and shook the auditorium with a huge vibration, which set off some improvisational vocals. I had a pvc back up flute, thank god, and began blowing on it. I listen to Rick, Rick listened to me. An we had a lot of fun. We made sounds that we had never made before. At the end, we got a nice applause, it seemed like the audience dug it. From the feedback we recieved, many people didn't think we did an improv, that it was all set, that the hack saw was rigged to break.
I think a lot of this improvistion will end up in our annual run in December at La MaMA E.T.C.
Posted by Perry Yung at July 29, 2004 10:23 PM