Summer Labs Showcase:
Jen Shyu: Nine Doors
in association with Asia Society
co-presented with World Music Institute
Thursday, June 29th @ 10pm
Tickets
About the Show
“[Jen Shyu is] a new kind of improviser-composer-ethnomusicologist hybrid…[she has an] extraordinary voice and a circle of high level improvisers.” – Ben Ratliff, The New York Times
In National Sawdust’s Summer Labs, we’re giving ten extraordinary artists and groups the tools to develop and showcase a masterpiece they couldn’t make anywhere else. Tonight, we host Jen Shyu (徐秋雁): a groundbreaking, multilingual vocalist, composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, dancer and 2016 Doris Duke Artist.
Jen Shyu’s project is Nine Doors — a full length multilingual, ritual music drama — a work that promises to evoke at levels both personal and global. Nine was inspired by the loss of Shyu’s friend Sri Joko Raharjo “Cilik,” a master of Javanese shadow puppetry who died with his wife and infant son in an automobile accident at the age of 30. His 6-year-old daughter, who survived the crash, is the central character.
Time stops as she encounters powerful female legends—from the Wehali Kingdom of Timor to the Korean folkloric myth of Baridegi, the mother of all shamans—who become her guides. Sung in Indonesian, Javanese, Taiwanese, Mandarin, Tetum, Korean, Japanese, and English, the work reflects the parallels that exist between life and death, different cultures, and the importance of empathy over destructive assumptions that divide humanity.
NPR Jazz Critic Kevin Whitehead said that Shyu’s last album, Sounds and Cries of the World (Pi Recordings), is “no drive-by encounter between musical cultures, no cherry picking of exotic licks. This is research and experience, absorbed and reimagined.” Works from Nine will be featured on Jen’s next album Songs of Silver Geese, to be released on Pi Recordings in October 2017.
About the Artists
Jen Shyu
Jen Shyu is a groundbreaking, multilingual vocalist, composer, producer, multi- instrumentalist, dancer and 2016 Doris Duke Artist. Born in Peoria, Illinois, to Taiwanese and East Timorese immigrant parents, Shyu is widely regarded for her virtuosic singing and riveting stage presence, carving out her own beyond-category space in the art world. She has performed with saxophonist and 2014 MacArthur Fellow Steve Coleman since 2003 and has collaborated with such musical innovators as Anthony Braxton, Vijay Iyer, Bobby Previte, Chris Potter, Michael Formanek and David Binney. Shyu has performed her own music on prestigious world stages such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rubin Museum of Art, Ringling International Arts Festival, Asia Society, Roulette, Blue Note, Bimhuis, Salihara Theater, National Gugak Center, National Theater of Korea and at festivals worldwide. Shyu has produced six albums as a leader, including the first female-led and vocalist-led album Pi Recordings has released, Synastry (Pi 2011), with co-bandleader and bassist Mark Dresser. Her acclaimed CD Sounds and Cries of the World (Pi 2015) landed on many best-of-2015 lists, including those of The New York Times and The Nation.
Alexandru Mihail
Alexandru Mihail is a NY based director, originally from Bucharest, Romania. His work, both in Romania and the US, varied in style and genre, is always fueled by the dialogue with the community and unabashedly challenging its fears. Selected theatre credits include: Aliens with Extraordinary Skills* by Saviana Stanescu (Odeon Theatre, Bucharest – European Premiere); The Underpants* by Carl Sternheim (National Theatre, Bucharest); Zoyka’s Apartment by Mikhail Bulgakov and Sophocle’s Elektra (Princeton University); The Last Days of Mankind by Karl Kraus (Bard Center for Performing Arts – American Premiere); The Stronger by August Strindberg (TBG Theatre/ Drama League NY); Master Harlod and the Boys by Athol Fugard and Enemy of the People by H. Ibsen (NYU/Atlantic Acting School); Tlicked* by Gabriel Pintilei (Odeon Theatre, Bucharest –Premiere); Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (The New School); Chekhov’s The Seagull (Yale School of Drama); the friendship of her thighs by Martyna Majok (Yale School of Drama); The Bachelors by Caroline McGraw (Yale, Carlotta Festival). Alex has won the prestigious UNITER Prize for his direction of Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy. For MediaPro Pictures, Romania, he directed the television series Poor Man, Rich Man. 2016 New York Theatre Workshop Directing Fellow; Drama League Directing Fellow; Fulbright Fellow; MFA, Yale School of Drama. (*Indicates show is still currently running) www.alexandrumihail.com
Kristen Robinson
Kristen Robinson is a NYC based set designer, her work ranges from site-specific installations, to outdoor Shakespeare. She is excited to be collaborating with Jen Shyu for a second time. Her first collaboration with her was Solo Rites: Seven Breaths. Kristen’s design for Westport Country Playhouse’s Nora has been featured in Chance Magazine issue 4, and her design for Rapture Blister Burn won the 2015 Barrymore Award for Best Set Design. A Princess Grace Fellow, she holds her MFA from Yale. Recent credits include: Chasing Rainbows (Goodspeed Musicals), Sincerity Project (Team Sunshine Performance Corporation/Philadelphia Fringe Festival) Ethel,Alliance Theater, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Idaho Shakespeare Festival and Great Lakes Theatre,Heart of Darkness, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Minor Character The Invisible Dog. You can see her work at www.kristenrobinsondesign.com
Solomon Weisbard
Previously with Jen Shyu: Solo Rites: Seven Breaths. Collaborators in music, dance and dance/theatre include Jennifer Archibald, Joshua Beamish/MOVE, Maria Chavez, Ximena Garnica/Leimay, Invisible Anatomy, LoudHound Movement, Belinda McGuire, Stefanie Nelson, Patricia Noworol, Waxfactory, and four major works as associate set designer with Bill T Jones. Other New York credits include Duat (Soho Rep); Men on Boats (Playwrights Horizons/Clubbed Thumb); Christina Anderson’s Hollow Roots (Public Theatre/Under the Radar); Rite of Spring (Martha Graham); The Soldier’s Tale (Carnegie Hall); The Film Society (Keen/Theatre Row). Regional theatre: Arden, Berkshire Theatre Group, Magic, Merry-Go-Round, Portland Playhouse, Portland Stage, Yale Rep. MFA: Yale School of Drama. www.solweisbard.com
