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【高山流水無止盡】中文版

Mountain High River Flow …without end

music | animation | multimedia

A collaboration with the Flicker Art Collaboratory, Mountain High River Flow … without end features stunning animation of panoramic moving images of China’s famous Huangshan (Yellow Mountain). Combined with live music performed on the ensemble's cross-cultural instrumentation, the concert leaves the audience feeling as if they have stepped inside a Chinese painting that is coming to life all around them.

The imagery, done in traditional Chinese brush-painting style, captures the ever-changing landscape atop the Yellow Mountain – the fast-moving sea of clouds, the unusually-shaped stones and pine trees, the white waterfalls and green ponds, and the singing birds and playful monkeys – all moving in sync with the music.

Software developed by Kenneth Newby controls the video images with musical signals. As a result, the scroll acts as an instrument that allows the artists and musicians improvise together, co-creating the media image and transforming the ancient art forms.

In keeping with ancient Chinese tradition, the works draw inspiration from the landscape to express humanity and emotions. Consistent with Chinese philosophy, the mountain and water also constitute all aspects of nature in two poles - yin and yang. The sense of breath that flows through all different forms of Asian arts – music, dance, painting, and calligraphy – will be a unifying element between the different components of the project.

The new musical works include the world premiere of music by Rui Shi Zhuo (pr. Roo-AY Sher Joe) (Canada/China), and the Canadian premieres of pieces by Dorothy Chang (Canada/US) and Lan Tung (Canada/Taiwan).

animation - Rankine Suen, Oliver Szeleczky, Nadine Bradshaw, and Michelle Wilmot

producer - Lan Tung

videography - Nenad Stevanovic

composers - Rui Shi Zhuo, Dorothy Chang, and Lan Tung

photo: Nenad Stevanovic at Huangshan (Yellow Mountain), China

We thank the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts' Inter-Arts Program for the research and creation of this project, and the Music Program for the new commissions from Zhuo and Chang, the BC Arts Council, the SOCAN Foundation, and Creative Studies, UBC Okanagan.