Sao: In the moment in multiple disciplines
“Your music is a bit like the strokes of my calligraphy.” The first time jazz musician Kunter Chang heard Tong say that, he was taken aback.
After collaborating on the exhibitions “Evoking the Soul” and “Sao” (meaning “disturbance”), Chang gradually come to understand that the strokes of Chinese calligraphy, which can be rounded and smooth or wild and crazy, do indeed resemble his constantly changing lines of music on the saxophone. Even more importantly, both are improvised, never to be recreated in identical fashion.
Beginning in 2014, and continuing for three years, productions of Sao, Sao Plus and Sao 2016—all multidisciplinary mashups of calligraphy with modern dance, jazz and multimedia—were performed in theaters. Echoing the spontaneity of calligraphy, these productions were staged without directors, scripts, scores or choreography. The performers relied on multimedia projections in a three-dimensional space that created a structure for the improvised music and dance to fill in and flesh out. The performances thus demonstrated tremendous exchange and flow among the artistic disciplines. To blend these three artistic realms, the dancers, musicians and multimedia designers were all required to participate in the entire creative process, so that their individual characters and strengths, as well as their personal understandings of the calligraphies, would help to shape that particular version of Sao.
Noting that conflict and choice can raise artistic rapport and precision, Chang says, “You could almost describe it as like the state that a medium enters.” He adds, “Once that rapport is established, the need for language gradually disappears, as the performing artists can communicate with their eyes. By simply looking at a dancer, you can predict her next move, know that she is going to leap, and the music can immediately move to help.”
Performances of Sao gave rise to a wonderful interplay between black-clad dancers, musicians and calligraphic ink. (courtesy of At Ease Studio)