October 24, 2005
New Show
My next show opens in a week! Needless to say, there's still work to be done but if you're in the area, please stop by to see the show.
Mulberry Street Theater presents the EAR to the GROUND series: JET STREAM by Perry Yung with In Mixed Company.
Nov 3-5, 8pm
70 Mulberry St. NYC
$15 general/$13 students and seniors.
RESV. (212) 349-0126
Perry Yung and Maura Nguyen Donohue, together with Peggy Cheng, Brian Nishii, Richard Ebihara, and guests Abby Chan and Julian Barnett will present JET STREAM, a new multimedia performance piece looking at contemporary interculturalism through the movement of wind and bodies. Set against images of modern day Vietnam, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States, this celebration of the
diaspora uses dance, video, live music and personal narratives to reveal both the chaos and the calm of multiracial and multinational Asian identities. The work illustrates how culture can transcend borders of race, nationality and gender. Perry Yung, an American born Chinese, will craft a Japanese Zen bamboo flute (shakuhachi) each night on stage. Ideas like “turbulence” and “resonance”, common in the building of a flute, will be explored by the dancers and blended with elements of pop culture for a global perspective. This performance is made possible in part by the Manhattan Community Arts Fund/New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
The graphics -
http://www.htchendance.org/mstcalendar.html
Full descripton of the shared evening -
http://www.explorechinatown.com/GUI/Content.aspx?Page=Event&Type=427
For those who have never been to one of my performance art events, do not fear. There will be no fruit thrown at the audience or chocolate smeared on naked bodies...not this time ;-)
Have a great day.
Namaste,
Perry
Posted by Perry Yung at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)
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 10:23 PM | Comments (0)
June 01, 2004
Shakuhachi in Ritual Theater
If anyone is interested in seeing a theater production using shakuhachi in a ritual setting, stop by La MaMa E.T.C. in NYC this June 6,7 and 13 where you can catch the latest incarnation of Andrei Serban and Elizabeth Swados' Fragments of a Greek Trilogy. In Trojan Women, Yukio Tsuji and I play a duet on 2.4 shakuhachi flutes to underscore a lament sung by Onni Johnson for the death of the boy king.
I am amazed at how loud these two flutes are when a moment of silence prepares the ears of the audience for the lament. Shakuhachi players are always looking for loud flutes but in situations like this, a flute's charater is much more inportant than volumne.
La Mama E.T.C. Box office (212) 475-7710
Posted by Perry Yung at 11:46 PM | Comments (0)