Synthesised jam session of traditional sounds
Born in Fujian, experimental musician Dickson Dee grew up listening to the province’s serene millennium-old Quanzhou nanyin music. After migrating to Hong Kong, he discovered the contrasting Cantonese “southern tone” of naamyam, hailing from the Qing dynasty. For this cutting-edge concert, Dee and his synthesiser remix music of influential Quanzhou nanyin performer Cai Yayi and naamyam artist Chan Chi-kong from Chinese music ensemble The Gong Strikes One, with additional collaborative synergy provided on stage by transmedia artist Milosh Luczynski, dancer Terry Tsang and poet Chris Song.
Sound.Electronic Music.Concept and Creation.Producer
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Production Manager
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Sonia Chan (Noise Asia Production)
Assistant Producers
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Kitty Li (Noise Asia Production), Jent Zheng (Cyberdelab)
*By kind permission of City Contemporary Dance Company
Related Info
Meet-the-artist session after the 2 November performance
Sound equipment sponsored by Hong Kong Poetry Festival Foundation
About the Artists
Dickson Dee (Hong Kong)
Sound/Electronics/Concept & Creation
As a graphic design student back in 1989, Dickson Dee became one of the founders of the first indie music label
in Hong Kong. He started creating sound works in 1992 and, as a producer, has participated in the production and
release of more than 100 albums to date. He also performs on stage as a sound artist and composes scores for
film, modern dance, and experimental video, involved extensively with curating, producing and cultural exchange.
An active and prolific artist, Dee is widely seen in art projects and multiple music groups, his works launched,
performed, exhibited in Asia and Europe.
Cai Yayi (Quanzhou, Fujian Province)
Nanyin from Quanzhou
Cai Yayi, surrounded by nanyin since she was born, was constantly exposed to and influenced by the art of her
mother and other nanyin masters. She was nourished on the soil of Fujian in Southern China. Later, she studied
systematically and has been in close ties with it for more than 30 years. Well aware of nanyin’s riches and its
predicament in modern society, Cai returned to Quanzhou from Singapore in 2012 and founded the promotional
platform “Nanyin Yayi” and the Nanyin Yayi Culture Museum. Instead of confining herself to traditional nanyin
communities, she chose to reach a wider audience through different channels.In recent years, Nanyin Yayi
Musical Association has stretched its reach beyond Minnanese-speaking areas, edging towards dissemination of
nanyin across dialect regions. It has won the love and support of many young friends, who are able to sing a
nanyin piece together regardless of dialectical differences.
Chen Silai (Quanzhou, Fujian Province)
Nanyin from Quanzhou
Since 2003, Chen Silai, especially adept in playing the nanyin pipa, has been working with a number of nanyin
masters through recording work. In 2006, Chen participated in the Minnan Nanyin Ecological Research Project
and visited nearly a hundred nanyin communities in Xiamen, Zhangzhou, and Quanzhou. He also took charge of
the recording and release of several nanyin albums. In 2008, he took up duties in Singapore and became the
artistic director at Singapore’s Sheng Hong Arts Institute and council member of World Southern Music Friendship
Association. Since 2012, Chen has served as the main sound engineer/recordist and pipa performer of the
Quanzhou Nanyin Record Project. In 2015, Chen and Nanyin Yayi Musical Association were invited to the United
Nations Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland for cultural exchange.
Chan Chi-kong (Hong Kong)
The Gong Strikes One
Chan Chi-kong, graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in 2010 majoring in Chinese opera
accompaniment. As a child, he learned Cantonese opera from his father, and later studied dizi under famous
artists Cheung Heung-wah, Lam Si-kwan and Sun Yongzhi. While at school, he was active in various Chinese
orchestras in Hong Kong. He also studied huqin under Kwan Bing-man and Auyeung Ting. In 2013, he designed
music for the new Cantonese opera Li Zhi and Wu Mei (scripted by Liu Yuk-fung). From 2014 to 2017, he as a
musician helped reconstruct the early music scores at the “Interpreting Early Cantonese Music” Lecture-Concert
Series organised by the Chinese Opera Information Centre of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 2012, he
founded The Gong Strikes One and has since devoted himself to writing nanyin pieces, while exploring various
forms of expression in Chinese opera.
The Gong Strikes One
Making their debut in 2012, The Gong Strikes One showcase vocal and instrumental passages from Chinese
operas while preserving the flavour of drama and experimenting different musical settings of the genre. Narrative
singing is one of the favourite genres of the group: they perform their original naamyam pieces and are currently
rearranging the classic opera The Purple Hairpin into a narrative-singing setting. In 2017, they presented their first
theatrical work, I, Wu Song at the Studio Theatre, Hong Kong Cultural Centre.
Milosh Luczynski (Poland/Paris)
MOD/Image
A Paris-based visual, intermedia, A/V and light artist, Luczynski creates monumental multimedia installations, live
media performances, immersive kinetic spaces often filled or superposed with animated text lines; on the border
of visual music and spatial augmented reality. His multilayered work explores fundamental questions relating to
time and space, as well as the boundaries of perception.Pioneer of VJing in Europe in the mid-90s, Luczynski
worked alongside electronic musicians (e.g. Richard Pinhas, Laurent Garnier, Patrick Vidal), “new music”
composers (e.g. Dickson Dee, Krzysztof Knittel, Wilfried Wendling, Marek Choloniewski) writers, poets (e.g. Bas
Bottcher, Adam Wiedemann, Vincent Ravalec, Scott Thurston) and media artists such as Daïto Manabe. Having
participated in many festivals (e.g. Paris, Beijing, Berlin, London, Moscow), he has performed and released his
works worldwide, such as Palais de Tokyo, Kunsthaus Baselland, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and
National Gallery Singapore.
Chris Song (Hong Kong)
Poet
A poet and translator, Chris Song has published three books of poetry and quite a few books of translated poems.
In 2010 and 2011, he was a resident writer at Bundanon, Australia. In 2013, he was awarded the Premio Mondiale
di Poesia Nosside of Italy. He is currently the Executive Director of International Poetry Nights in Hong Kong, an>
Art Advisor (Literary Arts) of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, the Editor-in-Chief of the poetry magazine
Voice & Verse, and the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Association of Stories in Macao.
Terry Tsang (Hong Kong)
Dancer
Terry Tsang fell in love with dance and music at a young age. He graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for
Performing Arts, majoring in contemporary dance. He joined City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC) in
2013. During his studies, Tsing embarked on his journey in choreography and was invited to perform in various
productions at the Academy and beyond. With a scholarship awarded by the CCDC Dance Centre, he presented
his choreographic work Exotic Territory which was invited to the 9th Guangdong Dance Festival, and to the
Imagination Boom for E-Side Dance Company in 2012 and 2014 respectively. In 2016, his new work Hide • Flee
debuted at CCDC’s 2016 Dancers’ Homework to critical success. That year, Tsang also unveiled his latest work,
Sole, at the 18th Hong Kong Dance Awards Presentation & Gala Performance. In 2017, his new work Trinity
premiered at the Hong Kong Jockey Club Contemporary Dance Series presented by the Hong Kong Arts Festival.