Here the On Ensemble member, Kris Bergstrom plays the Koto, a Japanese zither-like instrument. Courtesy of APA

The Performing Arts Creates Communities of All Sizes

By Nayla Huq

Friday, August 22nd the Grand Performances Summer Concert Series held its Far East Festival of Music and Dance featuring five phenomenal acts in the following order: On Ensemble, the Korean Classical Music Institute Ensemble, the Korean Dance Academy, Yungchen Lhamo, and Liu Qi Chao with the Pacific Zheng Ensemble.

On Ensemble performers take a quick glamour shot before a grueling interview. Courtesy of APA

All presenters not only sought to provide their audience with cultural enrichment, but demonstrated a strong belief in building a sense of community. Different performers prefer different kinds of communities. They can range in size from a small handful of tight-knit, innovative Taiko drummers to a synergistic world community chanting for global freedom.

The Far East Festival opened with the thunderous Taiko drumming of the On Ensemble quartet who cannot be pigeon-holed as another genre-bending fusion group. Their mastery of traditional Japanese instruments, music and vocalization will testify to that! The members are: Shoji Kameda, Masato Baba, Kris Bergstrom & Bryan Yamami, filling in for Michelle Fujii. In the interview following their show, Kameda, the group's eloquent spokesperson, explained to me that despite their inclination to push musical boundaries by combining their modern musical tastes with traditional Japanese instruments, innovation is not their motivation. On Ensemble lets themselves have fun with Taiko drumming, mixing it with their generation's musical tastes, but they also take Taiko seriously, even though they don't focus on the traditional technical aspects of it.

Filling in for Michelle Fujii, who is currently in Japan, Bryan Yamami praises the importance the On Ensemble places in developing a tight-knit Taiko drumming community that is not so interested in being competitive, but enjoying and exploring their chosen artform. This close community relationship was apparent on stage as the drummers use their drumming as their language to communicate with each other.

Find out more about the On Ensemble and Taiko drumming at onensemble.org

The Korean Dance Academy dancers amaze the audience with their performance of the Three-Drum and One-Drum dance. Courtesy of the Korean Dance Academy

The Korean Dance Academy dancers presented their talents after the On Ensemble. Their award-winning director, Jung Im Lee, founded her academy with a sense of community in mind, and a mission to inspire pride in young Korean-Americans, while bringing about an awareness of Korean culture to non-Koreans. Her gift to the Angelino community comes in the form of her academy's performance of the Fan Dance, the Three-Drum Dance and the One-Drum Dance.

Get further acquainted with the Korean Dance Academy at koreandanceacademy.com

Six identically dressed dancers took their places in their individual three-sided scaffoldings, containing a drum per side to do the Standing Drum dance. They accompanied an adolescent girl, playing the towering One Drum. In unison the sextet jumps, twists and turns while hitting their drums, never missing a beat.

Next, Tibetan-born a cappella singer, Yungchen Lhamo's took center stage and her powerful voice melted even the iciest of souls. Lhamo crossed the Himalayas on foot to flee Tibet in 1989. Despite the ongoing suffering that she and her people face, Lhamo still has the ability to find a glimmer of hope in the darkest of moments. With soaring vocalizations of human sorrow and hope, she unites people across the world through her music. Requesting her audience to join her in song, she led them in a revolutionary-spirited chant, "Ram-zin," which means freedom in the Tibetan language. Improvising to their chant, she invokes an image of a shooting star, pulling her chorus to the heavens.

Yunghen Lhamo captivated her audience with her powerful, spiritual a cappella vocalizations. Courtesy of yungchenlhamo.com

More about Yungchen Lhamo can be found at yungchenlhamo.com
Liu Qi Chao and the Pacific Zheng Ensemble topped the night off with a lesson in Chinese musical history. The master-performer and composer constructs a community through cultural exchange in his performances. Each piece gave nature an artistic soundtrack: horses roam the endless grasslands and magical walnuts rain on tin roofs. The Mongolian dance sequences also encompassed multi-cultural sensibilities.

Liu Qi Chao has not only composed and performed traditional Chinese music, he has also collaborated with many Western artists. Chi Music is his own jazz ensemble. During his interview, he personally told me that he likes American music and looks forward to working with American musicians.

Mr. Liu Qi Chao holds one of the many Chinese instruments in his repertoire. Courtesy of ancient-future.com

Mr. Chao's dream is to bring Chinese music to the Western people. The engaging performance he and the Pacific Zheng Ensemble put on was not only making that dream a reality, but was also attracting a new fan base.

The performers of the Far East Festival succeeded in teaching us about their culture, and that the performing arts can create different kinds of communities. Sharing something so close to their soul with an audience created a community where the members conversed in rhythms and cheers.

Liu Qi Chao poses with two members of the Pacific Zheng Ensemble, for whom Mr. Chao composed the enchanting music used for the night’s performance. Courtesy of performingartsregister.com

If you missed the Far East Festival, Grand Performances still has more free concerts coming up. Also, their summer concert series is an annual event, so you can look forward to a whole new array of gifted performers next year, as well! Please visit grandperformances.org for more information.

August 29, 2003