Jen Shyu in Solo Rites: Seven Breaths. Image via Asia TOPA.
The audience is led into a scented performance space. Elegantly simple props and sets can be discerned through a haze of mist including a suspended white-paper cube and four illuminated bunches of leaves hung from suspended wires above. The floor is strewn with exotic musical instruments including a pale Taiwanese moon lute and gayageum, a traditional Korean zither-like instrument. A sonic background cacophony of singing and talking from unknown places provides an abstract auditory montage to this prelude space. A smiling Jen Shyu tentatively enters quite unassumingly and without fanfare, dressed in flowing white. She carries a shawl which, when unknotted and emptied contains further musical instruments and mementos of her journey. We sense that Shyu is not staying long but comes only to pause, reflect and generously share parts of her voyage with the audience. We learn that for the past 15 years Jen Shyu has been on a tireless quest for beauty across Asia, absorbing as much as possible along the way. She speaks of the privilege it has been to learn from so many masters. Shyu admits to being “obsessed by languages” and in the space of this 60-minute program she fluently speaks seven.
Part of the “beautiful chaos” of her life, Shyu was born in North America of immigrant Taiwanese and East Timorese parents. She is a Stanford University graduate in opera with classical violin and ballet training. A Fulbright scholar, she studied traditional ballet and music in Cuba. She is also a concert pianist having mastered Tchaikovsky’s first Piano Concerto in her early teens. Now living in New York her performances celebrate her disparate heritage and yet many different cultures.
This impressive one-woman show introduced haunting poetry, dance, virtuoso singing and instrumental performance from East Timor, Indonesia, South Korea and Taiwan. Most impressive was the South Korean ‘Breath’ of seven where a section of P’ansori was expertly performed. A traditional musical drama art-form, P’ansori is usually performed by a solo singer and drummer, but on this occasion Shyu took both roles while urging the audience to shout calls of elation and encouragement in Korean, and we did. The mesmerising complexity and unmistakable style of this singing was followed by a ‘healing ceremony’. A long piece of bamboo channelling away all anxiety is struck on the ground during further song. The bamboo striking was shared with members of the audience as Shyu continued her splendidly elaborate singing. (Indeed, for me it was just what the doctor ordered after yet another week of seriously anxious politics emanating from North America.)
Following this memorable performance, I was left with the distinct impression that through this brief interaction with the amazing artistry of Jen Shyu we were given something very precious and profound that I was eager neither to forget nor misplace. After a myriad of different styles of poetry, dance and music, some quite abstract, and conveyed in multiple languages, perhaps it was these words that resonated most strongly: We are not strangers, we are not separate beings: we are brother and sister only.
Another standout presentation in the current Asia TOPA Festival.
Rating: 4 1/2 stars out of 5
Solo Rites: Seven Breaths
Saturday, 18 February, 2017
Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre
Presented by Melbourne Recital Centre in association with Asia TOPA
Jen Shyu, composition, vocals, dance, Taiwanese moon lute, piano, gayageum, East Timorese takadou
Garin Nugroho, director
Danang Pamungkas, choreographer
Kristen ‘Krit’ Robinson, set and props designer
Ghia Javaqueen and Kristin Isola, costume designers
