“18 Stanzas Sung To A Tatar Reed Whistle” Exhibition
FiveMyles
This event has ended.
“I first read Ts’ai Yen’s poem in a translation by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung about 20 years ago. I have loved this sad poem and always felt I would have wanted to know Ts’ai Yen. The daughter of a well-known scholar in the Han Dynasty, Ts’ai Yen became an accomplished musician and poet. She was abducted by Tatars from the North and lived in a Nomad camp for 12 years, where she gave birth to two boys. Eventually the Chinese paid a heavy ransom to bring her back to China. But she had to leave her sons behind, and this sorrow continued to be the main source for all her poetry.
Ts’ai Yen’s poem has been variously translated as 18 Stanzas Sung to a Nomad Reed Whistle or to a Nomad Flute. Posterity has come to know her as Cai Wenji, her curtsey name.
Lui Shang in AD 770 re-wrote Ts’ai Yen’s poem, and the 12th century the Song emperor Gaozong commissioned 18 scrolls to be painted based on Lui Shang’s poem. 14th century copies of these scrolls are housed in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Ts’ai Yen’s return to her homeland has been romantically depicted in many paintings and poems. But her own poem tells of her homesickness, her sorrow and her love for her sons.” - Hanne Tierney
Throughout her career Tierney has created work that reveal puppetry to be, in essence, the Art of Gesture, and with this work, both as an installation and as a performance, she has realized her vision as closely as she can.
Chinese and Nomadic robes, burlap tents, aluminum siding, roofing starter shingle rolls and aluminum spears – all installed within a complex network of fine strings – are used to create an installation, intriguing in its own right, that clearly insinuates an underlying narrative. When performed these objects and materials, combined with live music, video projection and lights, are transformed into a work of theater.
Hanne Tierney has developed a counterweight stringing system of 88 strings – the same number as there are keys on a keyboard. The strings are arranged against a wall and are performed very much like a musical instrument and in full view of the audience. Through this web of strings Tierney manipulates the materials and objects, which are her performers, into movement. These movements are then carefully choreographed into gestures of intensely emotional expressions.
Hanne Tierney has performed her work at HERE Art Center, St. Ann’s Warehouse, FiveMyles, the Public Theater, BAM, the Sculpture Center, MoMA/PS1, the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum, and internationally. She is the Founder and Director of FiveMyles.
Jane Wang has composed the music for this piece and will perform it on a variety of instruments. She received a 2013 Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding Music in a Play for Hanne Tierney’s Strange Tales of Liaozhai.
Hannah Wasileski painted the images for the projections on a Buddha board. She most recently designed the projections for the new Magic Flute at the Staatsoper in Berlin, directed by Yuval Sharon.
Conceived, constructed and performed by Hanne Tierney
Music: Jane Wang
Video Art: Hannah Wasileski
Narrator: Rachel Lu
Lighting Design: Trevor Brown
Co-performer: Brooke Van Hensbergen
PERFORMANCES: SEPTEMBER 19 (FULL), 20 (FULL), 21 (FULL), 26, 27, 28, OCTOBER 3, 4, 5, AT 7:30PM
Performances are free, but reservations are required.
Media
Schedule
from September 19, 2019 to October 05, 2019