Dance of the Shaman

How does one discover the meaning of life? In chaos? How do desires originate, and is it at all possible to desire something? In this summer concert, ancient philosophical questions are given new expression in medial compositions of video, dance and electro-acoustic sounds and are closely linked with traditional cultural practices through poetic elements of design in music and gesture. The work »access« by YongJoon Yang together with the dancer JungEun Kim is situated in the Korean shamanist tradition which interactively links the elements. The dancer controls the events herself, a special shamanist ceremony for directing one’s wishes to a God. The second, purely electro-acoustic composition by YongJoon Yang takes fragility as its theme.
An aesthetic counterpoint to the two Korean works is represented by the premiere of the audiovisual work »Future Paleontology« by Sean Reed and Robert Darroll, which similarly draws on Asiatic culture; the acoustic section of the latter work originated in 2010 during a scholarship awarded by the ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics. This narratively conceived work deals with the search in chaos, which remains without results. Dararoll’s HD resolution, digital animation is slightly influenced by manga techniques, while Sean Reed’s electro-acoustic composition is based on physical modeling.

The three participating artists are currently guest composers at the ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics.
 

Program

YongJoon Yang: »graublau II« (new version 2009, orig. 1999) 8'30"
4-channel audiotape

YongJoon Yang: »access« – Gestaltfaktor 3/9 – (2011, premiere) 30'-35'
for dance, video and electronics

YongJoon Yang: composition and interactive video
JungEun Kim: dance, choreography

Sean Reed / Robert Darroll: »Future Paleontology« (2010, premiere) 9’
composition for video and 2-channel-audio

Sean Reed: composition
Robert Darroll: video and text