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Cinnamon Sphere mixed-media trio (Peebles, Perera, Gong)
"If You Catch a Bird: Receive • Hover • Go" (1999 / 9:16) "Cinnamon Sphere" mixed media trio come together with komungo virtuoso and composer Jin Hi Kim, whose performance on traditional and electric komungo and changgo (Korean 4th-century fretted board zither and hour-glass shaped drum) sparks a musical and visual dialogue rich in shamanistic connotations, passionate bursts of ink on paper and hypnotic reverie. Peebles distills this studio performance into three distinct vignettes which capture the emotional exchanges of the group, up-close textures of ink and brush in motion and their transformation into three completed art works. Produced and directed by Sarah Peebles, featuring "Cinnamon Sphere" mixed media trio:
"Kaladar Kodex" (1999 / 10:40) Two musicians and a calligrapher come together in a rural field, where they explore their musical, artistic, physical and spiritual connection to the elements and to the historical farm surrounding them. Peebles reconstructs their performance and the myriad of views recorded by herself and Perera with an eye towards the textures of plants, of creatures and ink, musical gesture, and non-linear, experimental form. This is a tableau of improvisation in the moment — an autumn afternoon as the storm approaches beyond the barn. Featuring (in order of appearance) Chung Gong Ha–calligraphy, Nilan Perera–prepared electric guitar and effects and Sarah Peebles–computer-assisted performance; the group collectively known as "Cinnamon Sphere". Performers
"Slow Life" (1997 / 5:38) Performers This short black and white video spans the creation of a single, spontaneous painting created in conjunction with an evocative, dream-like soundscape improvised in the moment. Focusing on the brush work of calligrapher Gong, in dialogue with musical gestures from Perera (guitar) and Peebles (computer), this elegant meditation slowly reveals a visual landscape reminiscent of mountains and waterfalls and an aural landscape inhabited by birds, fire, water and ethereal tones — a "cinematic, ritual performance for eyes and ears".
Overall Description Featuring the Toronto-based mixed media trio, "Cinnamon Sphere" (Sarah Peebles, Nilan Perera and Chung Gong Ha), this trilogy of video works depicts the three performing artists whose unusual and highly innovative approaches to sound and visual art create "cinematic, ritual performance for the eyes and ears". Juxtaposing real-time with the non-linear, color with black and white, and indoors with the outdoors, the three distinct settings presented here provide a layered psychological perspective of the act of spontaneous creation. Calligraphy performance, altered electric guitar, shô (mouth-organ), and sampled insects, fire and birds create an evocative, hypnotic mixture of aural textures, light, and motion. This is Peebles' debut in the realm of video creation. Unorthodox music and calligraphy come together to create highly charged, intense performances. "Cinnamon Sphere" creates cutting edge, improvised soundscapes for Western and Asian instruments alongside calligraphy performance inspired by Asian culture and the Zen tradition. Electroacoustic music and shô (Japanese mouth-organ) performance by Sarah Peebles and altered electric guitar and effects by Nilan Perera inspire calligrapher Chung Gong Ha to create large-scale abstract ink works in the moment, drawing from an inner meditative space and the interactive sonic dialogue of the group, who in turn interpret a kind of musical a score based on Gong’s visual images and his act of creation. "Dynamic. Unconventional. This is beautifully rendered electroacoustic music, as the natural tones are manipulated sensitively, and the sound and image emerge from the same conditions... There is much to see." — Eye Weekly
Group Biography Cinnamon Sphere (Gong, Peebles, Perera) highlights contemporary culture influenced by Asian tradition, and features artists coming together from a rich variety of backgrounds, whose collective work celebrates a dynamic integration of divergent influences. Artist Chung Gong Ha draws heavily from the traditions and energies of Korean Buddhist and Zen visual art and practice. With roots in the soil of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Christianity in Korea, Ha's past impresses itself upon the calligraphic brush and between the action of the strokes to establish a history that corresponds to the moment. Using meditation as a focal point for his creative process, his expression takes on qualities of ritual, dance, ecstasy, and trance. Gong's works are included in the Asian Art Collection of the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Sri Lankan-Canadian musician Nilan Perera is a sonic explorer and improviser whose work expands the language and techniques of experimental electric guitar performance. In his unusual approach to the guitar, Perera utilizes preparations of assorted paraphernalia such as swizzle sticks, paper clips, metal brushes and the like, as well as feedback and a variety of electronic effects. His explorations of sound infuse timbre, melodic gesture and cyclic contour with reminiscences of the blues, Hendrix, Partch, Sri Lankan folk and other musics, drawing on his activities as avant-jazz guitarist, sound explorer and composer. Electroacoustics by Sarah Peebles focus heavily on sampled sounds which are called forth and manipulated on the fly, using a Macintosh computer running Max, Sample Cell and other programs. She gathers and alters her own sounds, which run the gamut from dust pans, home-made reeds and bullroarers, to hummingbirds, ignited vapors, cicadas and water. Peebles also draws upon the sustained tones of the shô — a free-reed mouth-organ noted for its unique timbre and tendency to 'throw' sound in unexpected ways. Peebles' sound works and compositions often explore alternative performance settings, such as museums, bamboo groves, temples and parks. Uniting her music with diverse arts, she has collaborated with spoken word, dance, video and installation artists, artificial intelligence researchers and other musicians ("If You Catch a Bird" only: ) Guest artist Jin Hi Kim is highly acclaimed as both a komungo virtuoso and as a composer of bicultural compositions. Kim is considered worldwide as one of the leading voices of the new generation East. Over the past twenty years, she has developed a series of compositions, "Living Tones". Kim has composed a wide array of compositions for the Korean komungo (a fourth-century fretted board zither), which she has performed in concerts with the Kronos Quartet, Xenakis Ensemble, and the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society. She has co-created the world's only electric komungo and has co-developed four interactive pieces for the electric komungo and a MIDI computer system, which have been presented at Smithsonian Freer Gallery in Washington DC and Asia Society in New York. Kim has performed extensively throughout the USA, Europe, Canada, South America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Russia. For more information, see [www. 00discs.com]. Contact: Sarah Peebles T (416) 778-8487 E: sarahpeebles@gmail.com W: www.sarahpeebles.net Videos, JPEGS available upon request from Vtape: www.vtape.org “Kaladar Kodex” published on “Gathering - Smash and Teeny featuring John Butcher” a double CD of music and video (spool, FIELD 5, SPF305, 2003), available from spoolmusic.com. "Sounds seem to blossom effortlessly out of the electrified instruments and the Mac patches as if meditated into presence... (Peebles and Perera) mix tidal undulations of tone with the ability to pick out sharp flecks of texture in complex aural environments" —The Wire Videos available from V-tape (www.vtape.org)
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Strange Nature S t r a n g e N a t u r e Peter Chin: costumes Friday, August 16 & Saturday, August 17, 1996 August 1-10, 1996 |
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