We’re really fortunate to have artists nnscya (Annisa Cheung) and Wong Winsome Dumalagan visiting London from Hong Kong this May. nnscya’s and Winsome’s practices are representative of the practical and imaginary responses to their lives in Hong Kong and the wider region. In terms of the media they work with—in Winsome’s case film and installation, and in nnscya’s, sound and music—I’ve always been struck by how meaningful and engaging the directions they take have been, their aesthetics reflecting a reality that allows for dream-like observations and a magical reinterpretation of mundaneness; in terms of the creative scenes of Hong Kong, they have feet in both the official and the underground, which is perhaps a characteristic trait of relatively small communities.
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EVENT: Mouthpiece & Trail Shoes: nnscya & Wong Winsome Dumalagan
While I’m in the UK, I’m taking the opportunity to plan some events for visiting artists – those I have worked with in Hong Kong either directly or who hold a relation to the spaces for experimental performance there that I have been documenting. In early May Hong Kong artists Annisa Cheung (aka nnscya) and Wong Winsome Dumalagan will be in town for a few days, and we have arranged the event ‘Mouthpiece & Trail Shoes’ on the 7th of May at the artist-run venue Eat the Sunshine . Down the Sun in South London. The evening will include a solo performance by Annisa, a screening by Winsome, a collaborative performance by them both, and finally I will join them for a conversation about their work. Hopefully we will meet there!
For more details and tickets: https://gel.now/events/286
Upcoming talk in Hong Kong
I’ll be giving a talk about my research at the UNHEARD Sound & Music Festival on 2 August, 1pm at Eaton HK. Looking forward to seeing you there!
24-08-21 Pre-1989 Popular Music in China
開天闢地 – 中國新音樂系列之一 = Chinese New Waves Volume 1 ・ The Window Is Opened, CD (published by Sound Sound Music Publishing Co., Ltd., 1988)
In 1988, a decade into the Reform and Opening Up period, as the local Rock music is asserting itself as an alternative popular music to the ubiquitous gangtai yinyue (‘music from Hong Kong and Taiwan’) or oumei yinyue (‘music from Europe and the US’), and a year before the radical deflection of this emergence by the events of 1989, we find this compilation being published in Hong Kong representing the state of the Mainland’s musical output. Perhaps in a move to broaden its appeal to the Hong Kong market, the material on the CD is at the lighter end things, with vocal-driven soft rock, heavy on the synths, typical of the mainstream music in that period.
However the first track on this CD is《最後一槍》, composed and sung by 崔健 Cui Jian, who in a few years would be the most famous rock musician in China, but at this moment is preparing for the release of his first album which would appear the following year. This track is certainly at the milder end of his material, but—unlike the other, rather mellifluous singers on this CD, maintains Cui’s rough vocal delivery (to be fair, 王廸 Wang Di also sings in a similar fashion on this release).
It’s also interesting to note that the CD’s second track is also a Cui composition:《一無所有》. Reportedly first performed in 1986 in Beijing, this track would later become infamous for the way it spoke to the wider social situation in China. However, that moment is still a year away, and this version is sung by the popular singer 吳小芸 Wu Xiaoyun, the track becoming a sentimental ballad whose future significance would have been impossible to predict.
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