CO-MDBF Scene

Formerly North-Indian Global-Zombie-Trance Jazz, Barbershop-Darbhanga Fusion, Rai-Ska Outlaw Country Operetta , Neurofunk Madrigal Throat Singing, Freestyle Acid House Flamenco, Twelve Tone Boy Groups, Dark Ambient Ragtime Fusion, Klezmer Surf Trance; Gregorian Chant/Bluegrass; Andean-Reggae Black Metal for Lapsed Lutherans; Chinese Opera-Mississippi Delta Blues; Alpine Yodeling-Samba Fusion; and Mariachi-Polka Waltz-Punk Forum
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Cynth
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Location: Iowa, USA

CO-MDBF Scene

Post by Cynth »

There's so much going on in CO-MDBF right now, thought you might have missed these:

Chen Shi-Zheng
ImageImageLiu Sola

Theater summit
East meets West for Snow in June

BY IRIS FANGER

Chen, a veteran of Chinese opera who came to American attention with the 20-hour staging of the kunju opera The Peony Pavilion that he imported to Lincoln Center in 1999, is staging the climax of Snow in June. A character called the Girl has come back as a ghost to take her revenge on the people responsible for her execution. She had been falsely accused and found guilty of a crime she did not commit. Qian Yi is circling the stage in exquisite precision, first in a heel-toe pattern, then in a quick-paced flat bourrée, like a ballerina propelling herself in small, fluttering steps. As she moves, she sings in a high, reedy voice a 15-minute aria excerpted from the original work that she learned while a student at the Shanghai Opera School. A performer with Beijing Opera, Qian Yi made her American debut in The Peony Pavilion and was seen last summer at Lincoln Center in The Orphan of Zhao. She also appeared as a dancer in the production of Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine that the Handel and Haydn Society did in September. All three pieces were staged by Chen.

"The play was written at a time when China was occupied by the Mongolians, so the country was colonized," explains Chen of The Injustice Done to Tou O. "The theme is injustice from every angle of society. I chose this play because there are not these kinds of stories being performed on stage. I realized that the play is similar to articles I read in the newspapers about human traffic. It happens in China where Chinese girls are being sold. They wind up in brothels or being sold as a sex slave. Not much has changed in rural China, because of the law: one child, one family. Everyone wants to have a boy."

The story’s 13th-century dramatization is itself an adaptation of a fourth-century Chinese legend. Paul Dresher says his score, which incorporates the aria sung by Qian Yi, is based on American themes borrowed from "Delta blues, country music, gospel, and other forms. Our idea is to keep it rooted in an æsthetic that is more traditional and rural because the story takes place in the countryside." It will be performed live by the local quartet Andromeda, with the ensemble’s Evan Harlan serving as music director.
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/art ... 350149.asp


Red China Blues Woman
by Pan Keyin
Her uncle was a famous Red Army general and revolutionary martyr - but she was thrown out of the Red Guards. She trained as a classical pianist at the prestigious Central Conservatory - but made her name as a leather-clad rock and roll rebel. She went on to pen surrealist novels that have become cult classics. Now she sings a particularly Chinese brand of blues in New York. Her name is Liu Sola - and you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Liu Sola sits on the living room sofa in her mother’s Beijing apartment and says to me "I’m black." Now, my mother is Japanese but my father is black and I grew up in the United States: I know something about being black and I know that the 43-year-old musician and writer sitting in front of me is in fact not at all black: she was born in Beijing to a family of Han Chinese high-ranking Communist Party officials. But when I listen to her music - a distinctive blend of Asian opera and folk blended with African-American blues and jazz - I know what she means.

Liu’s first album was released in 1994. Entitled Blues From the East, the record is a fusion of Asian and African-American traditions, blending elements of funk, R&B, techno with oriental opera and Chinese folk music.
Diligentia maximum etiam mediocris ingeni subsidium. ~ Diligence is a very great help even to a mediocre intelligence.----Seneca
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GaryKelly
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Location: Swindon UK

Post by GaryKelly »

Pffft. They're just so Alpine Yodeling--------Samba Fusion wannabees. :roll:
Image "It might be a bit better to tune to one of my fiddle's open strings, like A, rather than asking me for an F#." - Martin Milner
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