Take a look at this youtube vide on Ray Johnson's "what is a moticos"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OHXhUyl_6Y

Could a Haapening have any relevance today? Thinking about the social media, and its ability to mobilize peole. Are we now to apathetic to be mobilized into action other than posting on our phone or computer,anything beyond flashmob.  Like the fluxus movement, this seems to be more about an event that was more for and about the performers, moreso than audience.

Life is messy and non-linear.  We meander.  Two steps forward, one step back.  Turn.  One step forward, two steps back.  Stumble. Try again. Ten steps forward, never look back. Start over. 

And so it goes.

However, the art world historically reflects something completely separate from real life: Idealism.  Perfection.  Utopia.  These disconnects are what spurred the art movements known as the Futurists, Dadaist, and Fluxists, as they challenged both the cultural art domain (juries, curators, critics) and their audiences alike, forcing them to consider art that was noisy, unpracticed, and unperfected.  More like real life.

Learning about these movements has expanded my view about personal ability to make art.  I recognize that I’ve been clinging to a few ideals of my own.  I’ve often considered myself at a disadvantage in this program because I have no skilled art training; this has been my ‘reality.’  I’ve allowed this void to hold me back from pursuing certain ideas or projects that I consider because I simply don’t know how to do them.

But the sentiments of these art movements, and in particular, George Macuinas's "Manifesto on Art/Fluxus Art Amusement" offer content that causes me to ruminate. In part, his manifesto states:

• “anything can be art and anyone can do it”
• “requires no skill or countless rehearsals”
• “The value of art-amusement must be lowered by making it unlimited, mass-produced, obtainable by all and eventually produced by all.”

Comfort! Relief! Anticipation!  Zing! Zwompf! Pow!

Like all matter in the universe, I’m in a state of flux.  Flowing, shifting, morphing, expanding, changing.  It’s time to start meandering through art production.  Two steps forward, one step back.  Turn.  One step forward, two steps back.   Stumble.  Try again.  Ten steps forward, never look back, working on art that reflects the web that connects us all in its endless permutations, twists, turns, and baffling contradictions.

This is a video made by a group in the UK.  Their intention was to make a fluxus video that combines reenactments of well known fluxus performances from the 60's.  There is some criticism that it is too "over done" to be truly fluxus.  Either way, it is interesting.  It also makes me want to figure out which parts match original performances.  Anyway, here it is.  (Hopefully this works)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNJd3eSrqgA

 

Tried to embed, but had to resort to a link instead.

I'm really enjoying Higgins interpretation of Intermedia and the importance of the cross-sensorial experiences. There is a tendency to imagine intermedia works as technically driven  but this essay puts the emphasis on the body and the senses in a way that strikes the core of perception and meaning making. To think of the cross-sensory experiences as pure, un-mediated and un-controlled brings the meaning back to the body. “whether through the overlapping of touch,taste, smell, sound or speech, all of these works have, at some level, the principle of directness, non=mediation, and unprocessed experience at their core.” She points out that intermedia sensibility is based in visceral experience "that serve to connect us to our world bio-behaviorally". As shown with Shiomi's piece this approach has the potential to move outside of art and into a greater territory that is concerned with connecting humans around the globe via their basic senses. In this way, some of the work that is driven by the computer or technology risks losing this physical aspect and risks becoming an indirect communication. Interesting reading!

Although Merce Cunningham, Ann Van den Broek and Meredith Monk seem to have similar avant garde multi-media and/or intermedia work, each artist is unique and independent of each other, and remain true to the spirit of avant-garde intentions. Cage had an impact on all three artists, primarily Cunningham, since they worked together professionally and personally for fifty years. Cage's theories on music and creativity seemed to have slowly seeped into these artists looking to explore outside the boundaries of their disciplines. It takes a boldness to continue to explore the Fluxus and experimental ideas. Although the Avant-Garde seemed confined to the cities and academic institutions, this group's impact is still prevalent in contemporary artist's work as Monks and Van de Broek.

Monk, Van de Broek and Cunningham used multi-media, intermedia and then multimedia again which for me represents the transformation of these states in many of their work. I have watched videos of each of these artist's work and can see Cage and the Fluxus influence in their intent and products. Its extraordinary how well known these artists are in the US major cities, academia, global arena. Cage and Cunningham made an impact on artists since the 60s, but outside of these pockets, these artists are still a foreign entity.

Merce Cunningham was quoted in one of my recent articles on Fluxus artists as one of the most consistent artists to adhere to the Fluxus criteria of chance and intermedia. His work was considered 'baffling and beautiful' at the same time. His dance work embraced just the movement as stated in the following excerpt:

His work questioned the essence of dance,“What interests me is movement,” Cunningham said in a 2005 interview with Bloomberg News. “Not movement that necessarily refers to something else, but is just what it is. Like when you see somebody or an animal move, you don’t have to know what it’s doing.”

Source: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1913764,00.html#ixzz1kBk42k4d

I like that I am off the hook to find meaning. I can relax and just watch for the movement alone. I found the lack of meaning comforting. We are always thinking there is a right answer for everything and when there is no answer, its even better. The next excerpt indicates how the audience was tested by his work.

Source: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1913764,00.html#ixzz1kBk42k4d

Cunningham never made things easy for his audience. His dances shunned narrative and character. They were simply about dynamic human bodies moving in space. Occasionally the work assaulted the spectator. The 1964 “Winterbranch,” with its Sisyphean movement, its darkened stage from which lights shone full blast into the viewers’ eyes and its abrasive La Monte Young score had people exiting the theater in droves.

I am not sure I would be able to make the grade after being assaulted by lights. Audiences had to endure and be patient, and I think that in our fast-paced society this would be an additional challenge.

Cage collaborated with artists, Warhol, Rauschenberg, Stella, mixing up the media and dancers. The following excerpt provides a glimpse into these forays:

Source: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1913764,00.html#ixzz1kBk42k4d

“Summerspace” (1958), with its dancers streaming past Rauschenberg’s pointillist backdrop in leotards that match it; the exuberantly athletic “How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run” (1965); “RainForest” (1968), where the dancers move like jungle creatures among Warhol’s silvery helium-lofted pillows; “Sounddance” (1975), which seems to launch its performers into a violent intergalactic world; “Points in Space” (1986-1987), which takes its title from Einstein's declaration that there are no fixed points in space; and “Ocean” (1994), a magisterial piece that has its dancers framed by concentric rings -- the spectators and, behind them, the musicians.

He described “Ocean” this way in a November 2008 interview with Bloomberg’s Muse TV: “It’s like being in a bath of sound, because it comes from every source around you. In doing it, you find out something else about dance, something that you never thought of before. I always look forward to seeing what that will be.”

I love the last line in this quote. Chance is a major element in his work and even he has no idea what it will become in each production.

Source: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1913764,00.html#ixzz1kBk42k4d

In creating a dance, Cunningham sometimes turned to the “I Ching,” the Chinese system based on rolling dice. Injecting an element of chance into his work, he said, expanded his choreographic choices that might otherwise be limited by habit. Zen philosophy, with its emphasis on the present moment, and a keen sensitivity to nature also informed his work.

I like that he also did his dances in site specific locations. Change and chance were the cornerstones of both Cage and Cunningham's work, and the I Ching was used as a template. Cage has conjectured that the purpose of his work was not to bring order out of chaos but to embrace the chaos and live it.

The following two internet sites show the Merce Cunningham dance troupe on You Tube.

The first piece is called Mercat de la Flors, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGU2QQpQlD8

This is a site specific dance in a public building. The dancers are in red leotards and the music is like clanging barges on a port. The dancer's light movements clash with the harsh sounds. Although the dancers are all dancing isolated movements, there is symmetry in the entire piece- which is probably why it is successful.

The next Cunningham dance, Nearly Ninety, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpV5ZY9N-bg&feature=related is a dynamic production on a stage with enormous screens overpowering the dancers. The images on the screen are huge industrial platforms or machines The music plays to the images- discordant sounds and the movements reacting to the sounds. Cunningham would have had all the players in a performance work in isolation until the rehearsal. So improv, adaptability and flexibility of thought was an essential element leaving a lot to chance.

John Cage's music portrayed the inner sounds of the mind or everyday sounds of life. Sort of playing with the duality in life and sound perception. Cage's ruminations with perception and sound is similar to Meredith Monk's work on music. Monk's piece, Dolmen Music for 6 voices and percussion (1979) www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNacNzhcNZI is haunting and far beyond any a cappella I have heard. The performers seemed to be listening to each other then answering each other back in pure voices. I did not think I would like it, but I really did. It was relaxing and hypnotic, taking me to a medieval environment. The performers just performed noises, clear clear notes. I am not sure if it was intermedia or multi-media, yet since it was a performance, based on criteria and several elements, I am leaning towards intermedia. Monk's vocal innovations have been coined as her extended techniques, which extends to Cage and his forays into random sounds and methods.

The next Monk piece is called the Book of Days, (1988) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMFLct2laqw

It starts off literally with a blast in a colored brick wall and moving to a black and white performance from the Middle Ages. Its a combination performance, song, dance, opera and mythic drama. The performance seems like a morality play of deep, dark cultural secrets against the rhythm of a children's song. There are contrasting emotions working to form this strange past and future piece somewhere in an isolated world where the two realities converge.

The last artist I would like to highlight is Ann Van de Broek. Van de Broek is a Flemish/Dutch artist who has truly been a cutting edge dance choreographer and performance artist. In the following art piece entitled Co(te)lette,(2007) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJWYYa7nu6o&feature=endscreen&NR=1 she teams up with the American director, Mike Figgs who filmed this performance. The interesting thing is how he creates an audience and how the audience is forced or not to participate in this performance. This work is very edgy, physically and emotionally demanding for the dancers and the audience. The official synopsis states:

Source: http://www.dancecamerawest.org/pr/2011/Cotelette-presskit.pdf

THE CO(TE)LETTE FILM is Mike Figgis' cinematographic adaptation of the dance performance by Ann Van den Broek.

Women and flesh, beauty and perishableness, raw and fragile. A delirious desire overwhelms the dancers. A desire for physical and mental satisfaction. The dancers go from appeal to sensuality, over lust, fleshness, fame, success, reflection and control, to silence. They are slaves of their own desires while trying to get in control of them. Female bodies in a frenzy.

In THE CO(TE)LETTE FILM, three female dancers are shown in a rather intimate atmosphere, in a chicken-and-egg situation between desire and satisfaction. There is no confrontation, nor rivalry. No story-telling, no solution and no ending. Co(te)lette's story is restless and... empty.

The dance and the way it is filmed feels voyeuristic and personal at the same time. A dualism of toughness and glamour. The women are naked and bruised, and as the Los Angeles Times wrote it was “55 minutes of an unrelenting portrait of nakedness and erotica”. Ann Van de Broek stated that:

Source: http://www.wardward.be/e-avdb-visie.html

I am also inspired by contemporary society: a sign of the times, a recent phenomenon or a universal motif. In that sense, my work is also a critical reaction or rebelling against things that go unquestioned, are ignored or are generally assumed to be the norm. I feel the need to fight against conformity. However, this does not mean that there is a clear political, social or ideological message in my work.... "Co(te)lette," — literally "a piece of meat" — was also inspired by French feminist writer Colette.I have never intended to make a loud statement. It is only a subtle undertone in my work. These behavior patterns, impressions, signs of the times and phenomena from my surroundings are the basis of the core concept of every new production and each time they are linked to the general underlying themes that are characteristic of my work: restlessness, struggle, resistance, compulsion/control, fanaticism, nihilism and activity/passivity.
Music and sound play an integral part in the creative process of the choreography.

Through my work and characteristic dance idiom, I want to touch people, to make them think. I allow room for doubt and interpretation for the spectator, as well as for me. Everyday activities are placed in a new context: movement and dance. the selected core concept to movement is done through an in-depth and broad analysis. You could call this process a clinical analysis.

 

This piece by Van de Broek seems initially like a multi-media work until Figgis adds another element of film and the work takes on another dimension. The oblique angles. The birds-eye view and intimate views juxtaposing the audience's emotions. The film is startling in capturing the raw energy of the dancers against the stillness of the audience. The work is transformed into an intermedia performance that fuses all the elements into 55 minutes of three women dancers. Although Van de Broek's work is not a clear extension of Cage, Cunningham and Monk, the intention is worthy of the Fluxus. The elements and everyday activities that propel the themes and stories. Although this work seems to have definite themes, it is very abstracted so not one message is directed. Each audience participant extracts the meaning of this dance in the context of their persona.

 

When I think of Cage I see how he provided the fodder for Cunningham, Monk and Van de Broek. They found the elements in his work to transform into their own work. The work of all these artists encompass a certain boldness of spirit and a challenge to the viewer. I was surprised how accessible the work was for a lay person like me. I somehow got the sense I would have to study more stuff to understand the intentions and final products. I thought it would be difficult to discern the good, bad and the ugly of avant-garde work if one was a novice audience participant. I think you just have to take it as it comes and intuit each piece- that was probably the intent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Higgins did a great job of capturing the tension that occurs in intermedia works of art. The tension is a result of the cross-sensory experiences created by this approach. She makes it clear that these works, that bread curiosity, (which source makes that sound? which sound come from that source?) demand a different kind of attention from the audience then the traditional fine arts. I was inspired by Hannah Higgins analysis of Piano Activities. Before reading her take on it, I have always interpreted this piece as a "fuck you" to traditional music. However it becomes something deeper and different when it is thought to "activate a range of perceptual systems that only incidentally results in the destruction of the piano". This harks back to last weeks reading on conceptual art, where the art is a perfunctory event, secondary to the concept.  The true difference that I see between piano activities and a classical piano piece is the performer's experience. The performer either engages in something already known or engages in something unknown. This is the difference between knowing the end before the beginning and leaving the structure open to something new. However to think of the classical performer as subservient to the ear certainly changes things. Might this be a dramatic interpretation? The act of playing music is a cross-sensory experience. After all, the performer sees the notes, feels the sensations of the keys under her fingers, hears the timing of her own music to que the next movement of her hand. The performer is not isolating in order to deliver sound to the audience. To use Higgins words; "Sensory systems do not naturally function independent of each other physiologically or culturally". In essence, the human takes in information cross sensorily all the time, wether performing a traditional piece of music or participating in an Event.  

FLUXLIST: REPOST: re: Zen and Fluxus

Eryk Salvaggio
Wed, 18 Oct 2000 05:03:10 -0700

>From October 10th, 1999:

Today a small boy observed me through the window
at the bakery. When I said hello, he ran away.

It seems to me that this is not "art" but rather, my
experience was similar to the experience which
I had always believed was the aim of art.

A number of issues concerning aesthetics declare
the death of the innocent eye and take it for granted
that one cannot regain the innocent eye. The observation
of an object is always tainted by its relation to ones
own perceptions of previous objects and how they
relate. I disagree with this western concept.

One of the major essences of Zen is the return
to the "innocent eye." if we silence that top layer
of ego cream which buzzes with activity in the
forefront of our minds, if we are still and silent
long enough, we begin to hear through that
long romanticized (in western traditions) ego.
The connections buzz but soon slow, and we
become once again an innocent eye of pure
perception.

Now it seems to me that this initial stage of
enlightenment should be the goal of all
"creative activity." Quite frankly, the
presentation of something new ALWAYS
creates a stillness of ego and emphasis on
studied observation. Well, maybe not always.
Humans have a psychological tendency to box
chocolates rather than taste them. Humanity
has a subconscious urge to turn blobs of substances
into human faces; it stems from our initial
birthing instincts to differentiate mother from
father and parents from strangers. That's why so
many people see a face in the moon.

To me, then, revolutionary art must be aesthetically
varied from previous "art." In fact, I'm not sure
if looking to fit the idea of spirituality into art is
even remotely important; perhaps we should reject
our impulses to create a revolution in art and instead
focus on the concept of guerilla spirituality. The
__manufacturing of mystical experience.__

Working under the art umbrella to create revolutionary art
is like Che Guavera asking the Bolivian Government for
tanks. It should follow that, since revolutionary concepts
do not arise from art, rather, art from revolution, then I
think the best approach to "new art" is to ignore whether
it is art at all. The freedom we then possess is extraordinary.

How then do we manufacture mystical experiences? And is it
ethical?

Well, according to "Zen and The Brain," a fine book by James
Austin, which was published by MIT Press this year (which I
found courtesy of Max Herman) the answer is as simple as
meeting any of these criteria:

1. A feeling of deep and profound peace.
2. A certainty that all things would work out for the good.
3. A sense of ones own need to contribute to others.
4. A conviction that love is at the center of everything.
5. A sense of Joy and laughter.

This, I admit, is the shallow end of the insight spectrum.
There is a deeper end which follows these insights:

1. emotional intensity
2. an increase in understanding and knowledge.
3. a sense of unity and ones own part in it.
4. a sense of new life or of seeing the world in a new way.
5. confidence in personal survival (an after effect, it notes,
as mystical experiences make one forget the self)
6. ineffability (the inability to describe what had occurred)
7. the sense that all the universe is alive

It also says, quite importantly:

1. a sense of paradox, or that opposites coincide.
2. unusual emotional combinations; such as ecstatic joy
and serenity, or love and sadness, etc.

Now of course the role of the artist since god knows when
has been to try to capture the "glory of god," now in an
age where the glory of god is in fact little more, to most
people, than the glory of physics, beauty, or coincidence....
that is to say, we live in a predominantly atheistic age,
regardless of what one thinks about religion. The world
has little concern for deities anymore, and is looking in
a great number of other places for the experiences that
religion once accounted for.

So as artists in the late 90's- (I say artist, forgetting for
a moment that we are not out to create art anymore but
experiences, but hell, artist is a lot easier.) - we have
the challenge of creating that experience through our own
actions. The above are not to be seen as the only manner
of which to make "art" or experiences...(in fact, I will use
"experiences" from now on.) but as a blueprint for an ideal
final product. It was once said that any reaction from an
audience
is the essence of an artistic work, which in my opinion has led
to a duel between artists to outshock each other, and has taken
art down a very long funnel into a sewer. Now, I believe
we should strive for these criteria as an "essence" of our
experience making.

Is it ethical?

I am curious myself concerning whether the idea of
creating experiences which affect people in a manner
similar to mystical experiences is ethical. If it does not
presume and subvert the natural occurrences of these
experiences.

In my opinion, any mystical experience is essentially
the same. The insights gained from these experiences
are not ours to define. We are not molding dogma,
we are breaking it. We are providing an opportunity
for insight, not the insight itself.

Is it possible?

I came about this idea after Ken Friedman of Fluxus fame
asked for a short description of several pieces of Fluxus
work that I had enjoyed:

====================

"Anniversary"

Someone sneezes.

A year later, send a postcard reading, "Gesundheit!"

1965

Ken Friedman

====================


"Smile Game"

Say hello to every pretty girl you meet.
If she replies with a smile, you get a point.
The one with the most points wins.

1965

Milan Knizak

====================

"Ice Cream Piece"

Performer buys an ice cream cone and then
(a) eats it, or
(b) gives it to a stranger, or
(c) waits until it melts completely, then eats the cone, or
(d) on finishing the piece, buys another ice cream cone.

1966

Albert M. Fine

====================

(and I quote from my letter to fluxlist:)

To me, the distinctions are evident; these pieces rely on an
individual who can perform the piece as art at any time.
They do not require an audience. They are a shifting of
the focus and attention we give to art; only changed
to give focus and attention to the "mundane." Some are
charming, simple gestures designed to make life worth
smiling about. It is the act of becoming aware, and
appreciative, of the beauty of the every day. They read
like spiritual excersizes. Like haiku. They de-emphasize
the academic, the gallery structure, the "artist." They say
that a match being lit and going out is as beautiful as any
Rimbaud. It is also, because of its purity and statement,
and inherent connection to all walks of life, "revolutionary."

(end quote)

Unfortunately, the idea of Fluxus has been tainted by egocentric
gluttons and Nam June Paik. Well, its not Nam Junes Fault,
but he introduced or exemplifies the shift of fluxus from simple,
independant-of-art gestures to the emphasis on gallery
installations,
and even Maciunas, Fluxus founder, decided on the importance
of the "artifact."

The lack of artifact is why I believe we should ignore "art."
We are creating only experience, a shift of the everyday,
__even if it is through the artifact.__ The emphasis is on
the experience by the viewer of the artifact.

I'm interested in the idea that spiritual experiences are a
derivation of panic; the brain faces its own mortality and
can no longer make sense of the world it has constructed
for itself and so experiences things without the safety net
of denial. The difference between Jesus and a Schizophrenic
was only that the spiritual experience is different from panic,
in that the spiritual experience comes with a realization that
without such constructs we are all quite well off anyway- and
panic comes when we are hurtling from a plane towards earth
at terminal velocity or are about to be hit by a bus.

Art is merely an expression of shit. Artists derive from anal
expulsive personalities; the joy of painting descends from the
pleasure of the attention parents gave you when you first learned
to poop properly. That's Freudian anyway, and I count myself
among
the shit hurlers of the world whom are called artists in polite
company.

But to make art anything more than the hurtling of fecal matter,
we
have to have the aspiration to hurl our shit to heaven until it
sticks.
Otherwise comes a shit rain of canvas and pages filled only with
the incessant ramblings and smearings of the ostracized and
unlucky.

Let us then see how to create experience without art, even if art
is a necessary requirement. It is not merely performance but a
studied lifestyle, the dedication to creativity in every avenue
of
life. It is to embrace act over artifact. In this we could call
ourselves "actists," which I meant as a joke but now, looking at
it typed, has the very serious ring of revolution to it. It is
not
a principle of conversion but rather, a process of self
enlightenment
that reaches across multiple borders and sciences.

"Fuck art, lets rock," they once said, to which, 10 years later,
was
said, "Fuck rock, lets art," and now we will say, "Fuck Fucking
art and
rocking, let's GOD."


Peace out motherfuckers,
Eryk Salvaggio
October 10th, 1999

Zen and Fluxus

Aaron Kimberly
Tue, 17 Oct 2000 23:33:47 -0700

What I learned in a brief survey of texts I had to condense into a 20 page
paper. As with all things Fluxus, it wasn't an easy thing to pin down. But
there are so many fleeting references to Zen in regards to Fluxus, that it
was an issue in need of expansion. Not all Fluxus members were into Zen, and
not all artists/performers who were into Zen were Fluxus. It was important
to me to not centralize the movement too much in the US since the
contributions from Europe and Asia were important. I had to look, on one
hand, to the phenomenon of Buddhists monks leaving Asia to teach in North
America and Europe - and the challenges that posed to modernism. Then I also
had to look at the introduction of the "avant garde" in Asia where Buddhism
was already readily available.

I began the paper with John Cage:
- his studies with D.T. Suzuki
- his use of chance and the I Ching
- indiscriminate use of sounds (which included audience participation)
- how this related to other art like Abstract Expressionism

Then I talked about the George Maciunas paradigm:
- cohesively organized, documented and charted
- his public/social interests and Leninist influences
- I discussed, with the use of a few Maciunas quotations how he used the
lingo of Zen, but really didn't embody it. e.g.. his miss-use of words like
"Ego" where Buddhism is concerned.
However, he also coined phrases like "Neo-Haiku Theatre" which were most
useful for my topic. The portable, humorous, elegant, repeatable,
iconoclastic, anti-sublime, implicative qualities of Fluxus is where I dive
in to Zen.

I compare the Fluxus aesthetic of eloquent humour with Zen teaching
practices where humour is both an arrow penetrating the ego, and a signifier
of understanding.

Then, I discuss at length Haiku - especially in conjunction with Yoko Ono
and her Instructions. Ono's conceptual use of language is paradoxically used
to rest the mind. The viewer must respond intuitively. The empty state, she
suggests, is beyond duality. Likewise, the Zen koan is language meant to
penetrate beyond the semiotics of language.

March 17, 2010 |  1:30 pm

HANOI -- Every night in this city of 10 million people crammed into a super-thick urban stew is an amazing display of color and noise, of dirt and mysterious glamour. As always, swirling, swerving motorbikes define the movement.

On Friday night, some of those Vespas and Hondas and cheap Chinese knockoffs scooted over to  L’Espace, a French cultural center near the Metropole Hotel, the elegant gathering place of French intellectuals and artists in the Indochine era. L'Espace advertised, among other attractions, “video, am nhac thu nghiem va body painting.”

At first, three discreetly covered slender models tottered self-consciously on very high heels. Seated at a table was Vu Nhat Tan, Vietnam’s leading avant-garde composer, there to provide an electronica background as Phuong Vu Manh began to systematically apply a wash of color to each model -- one red, one blue, one green. Along with a player of the dan bau (the wonderfully whiny one-stringed Vietnamese instrument) and two singers, Tan gradually built a wall of elaborately inventive sound while Manh elaborately decorated his ladies into "Avatar"-like beings.

It was a happening. A sizable audience of hip art types and gawking adolescent boys crowded the gallery and drank beer or gin-and-tonics. This kind of performance/installation is not uncommon in art centers around the world, but here such freedom of expression is relatively new. And Hanoi may be the only place where you can follow experimental art with dinner in a snake restaurant -- where the pulsating snake heart is brought to the table as an appetizer, which is, for the squeamish, just about the most shocking performance art there is.     

Arts-world assists for new music are nothing new. American avant-garde music, for instance, pretty much began with John Cage’s New York debut concert at the Museum of Modern Art in 1943. Minimalist composers may never have gotten off the ground without the help of sympathetic Manhattan art galleries in SoHo during the '60s.

Now it’s Hanoi’s turn. Over the past week, while following the Pasadena-based Southwest Chamber Music’s Ascending Dragon Music Festival in Vietnam, I’ve gotten a glimpse of how Hanoi is striving to become a modern art center. This is a developing city which after long years of wars, deprivation and political insulation has only in the past two decades come out of the artistic cold. And not until the late 1990s, when the Internet became widespread, have musicians here had access to recent musical developments elsewhere.

The Southwest cultural exchange brings American and Vietnamese composers together for the first time on a significant scale. In the formal Hanoi concerts thus far, Vietnamese and American musicians have enthusiastically collaborated in John Cage’s “Atlas Eclipticalis,” a disembodied music of the spheres, and Toru Takemitsu’s “Archipelago S.” Both sounded marvelous in the acoustically vibrant small concert at the Vietnam National Academy of Music.

But since the academy emphasizes traditional music (be it Western or Vietnamese), audiences here tend to be incurious even about their own masterful senior composers -- the eloquently Buddhist Ton That Tiet and the flamboyantly original Nguyen Thien Dao -- who now live in France and are seldom performed in their homeland.

If Southwest has been giving a gentle nudge to the academy to think beyond Bach, Beethoven and Chopin, three composers who are particularly revered here (as are the Russians), it has been nudging elsewhere in town as well. The galleries are an easier sell for new music, whether foreign-sponsored venues such as L’Espace and the Goethe Institute, or smaller, edgier local galleries that have a more underground vibe and occasionally hold concerts, new music or rock, that suit their mildly subversive agenda.

Southwest, however, held a reception Wednesday night at the graceful, upscale Thang Long (Dragon) Gallery in the chaotic Old Quarter. A crowd munching on watermelon and French pastries heard an art historian and critic, Bui Nhu Huong, describe how Vietnamese modern art is so diversified that just about anything goes, be it decorative, landscape or something more contemporary.

Amid Buddhas, seductive nudes and Cubist sculpture, Tan (who is turning out to be a composer of a many intriguing sides and who is ready for major international recognition) led an inspired improvisation with four Southwest players. Tan’s instruments this time were three Vietnamese wooden flutes, and he began by playing slow, meditative tones. Violinist Shalini Vijayan, cellist Peter Jacobson, bassist Tom Peters and percussionist Lynn Vartan provided soulfully appropriate responses, until Jacobson had had enough and jazzed things up. A rhythmic dance came out of nowhere and rocked the gallery.

But nothing could quite match another kind of happening the previous night. America’s ambassador to Vietnam, Michael W. Michalak, invited the American and Vietnamese players and composers to his handsome residence, which is decorated with Asian art and paintings by Christopher Cousins, a Californian. And there Vartan performed Cage’s “Child of Tree.” Written for plant material, the score thrives on local vegetation, and Vartan managed to come up an indigenous cactus, which she amplified and on which she went to town.

The ambassador seemed to think this was one of the coolest things he had ever heard. Perhaps he was just being a good sport. But if Southwest really did win over an American politician with “Child of Tree,” then I have little doubt the Vietnamese resistance will have met its match.

-- Mark Swed

above from: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/03/southwest-chamber-musics-further-adventures-in-hanoi-.html