Feb 11, 20233 min read

"The Painted Bird Dancing in Tima and Space" Concert on April 6, 2023

"The Painted Bird Dancing in Tima and Space" performed by Ayuo, Akikazu Nakamura, Aki Takahashi, Yoko Ueno, Junzo Tateiwa, Fumio Kai, Youhshu Kamei, Kei Sakoda, Takui Matsumoto, and Tomomi Adachi

4/6/2023 (Thursday)

Open: 18:30

Start 19:00

Venue: Suginami Public Hall (Suginami Koukaidou)

See the map on the back side of the flyer

https://www.suginamikoukaidou.com/access/

Categories:

Avant-garde

Classical

World

Adv. Price

4500 Yen

Door Price:

5000 Yen

Details:

"The Painted Bird Dancing in Time and Space," by three composers, - premiered by leading performers of contemporary and classical music.

Lineup:

Ayuo (Vocals, medieval European psaltery, violin, guitar, composition)

Akikazu Nakamura (shakuhachi, composition), Tomomi Adachi (composition),

Aki Takahashi (piano), Yoko Ueno (voice, accordion), Junzo Tateiwa (Percussion), Fumiko Kai (violin), Youshu Kamei (violin), Kei Sakoda (viola), Takui Matsumoto (cello).

The concert consists of 3 new works by 3 composers (Tomomi Adachi, Akikazu Nakamura, and Ayuo) inspired by "The Painted Bird." "The Painted Bird" is a novel by Jerzy Kosiński that was made into a joint Ukraine/Poland/Czech film in 2019. The original novel describes World War II as seen by a boy, considered either Gypsy, Jewish, or Oriental, wandering about small villages scattered around an unspecified country in Central and Eastern Europe. In the novel, he is also often mistaken for a descendant of the Mongolians.

The title "The Painted Bird" was drawn from an incident in the story. The boy, while in the company of a professional bird catcher, observes how the man took one of his captured birds and painted it several colors. Then he released the bird to fly in search of a flock of its kin, but when the painted bird came upon his own flock, they saw him as an intruder and viciously attacked the bird until it fell dead from the sky.

This is used as a metaphor for discrimination. A boy raised in a foreign country tries to go back to his native land but is discriminated against and attacked by those whom he sees as his own kind.

In the 2019 film, an artificially created language called Interslavic was used so none of the nationalities in Eastern Europe would be blamed for the discrimination and hate crimes that the boy in the story faces. This was done because discrimination happens everywhere, and the blame cannot be placed on a specific nationality.

PROGRAM:

1) Tomomi Adachi: String Quartet No. 42 - "A Butterfly Yawns with a Monkey (after Pavel Haas)" with percussion (Junzo Tateiwa) and voice (Yoko Ueno)

Pavel Haas was a Ukrainian-Moravian Jewish composer who studied with Janacek. He was killed in a concentration camp. It is dedicated to the dream of a universal language that can be understood everywhere.

2) Akikazu Nakamura: "White Moon" for Shakuhachi and String Quartet

Who painted these birds, and who let them die? "White Moon" is the moon colored in white. It is known in science that the color "white" contains all the wavelengths, including all the various difficulties and hardships in the world.

3) Ayuo's suite, "The Painted Bird, Dancing in Time and Space," is for string quartet, piano, medieval European string instruments, electric violin, accordion, shakuhachi, and voice and was 'inspired' by the semi-autobiographical novel "The Painted Bird" by Holocaust survivor Jerzy Kosiński.

However, in Ayuo's version, the story intersects the Middle Ages, World War II, and the present day, and depicts the racism and discrimination based on ethnic and cultural differences felt by an innocent child who has yet to come to grips with the idea of ethnic and racial distinctions.

The suite contains previously performed compositions such as Ayuo's "Eurasian Tango", which was choreographed by the Sir Richard Alston Dance Company and performed successfully in tours in the UK including a performance at the prestigious Sadler's Wells Theatre. "When illusion looks like reality, then reality becomes just a fantasy" is a string quartet by Ayuo that was often performed with classical ballet. "3 Goddesses" was originally composed for a contemporary dance performance. I include links to these compositions with dance performances below:

Ayuo - WHEN ILLUSION LOOKS LIKE REALITY, THEN REALITY BECOMES JUST A FANTASY