Soundwave ((9)) Time
$6-$16 | ADVANCE TICKETS
Dialects
DIALECTS draws from sounds, songs, and stories about migration and displacement, both human and nonhuman featuring Szu-Han Ho in collaboration with Sandra Lawson-Ndu. Szu-Han Ho’s work explores the relationship between bodies and the places that preserve history and memories. Presented by Soundwave curator Patricia Cariño Valdez.
DIALECTS considers Szu-Han’s personal history and delves into her interest in language. The project germinates from stories of her family’s history in Taiwan: her great-grandfather’s murder, her family’s migration story to the U.S., and their history of owning a tamarind farm in Tainan. This performance emerges from a reflection on the tamarind fruit and its translation in Taiwanese <<giam seng di>> which means salty, sour, and sweet. Szu-Han finds inspiration in the ways in which language conveys not only meaning, but a method to transmit quality of tones, sounds, and emotions. She asks how both a musical chord and a memory can sound salty, sour, and sweet. Language and sounds bridge time and distance: “I was separated from my mother at a pretty young age for a matter of months when she came to the US. She left a cassette recording of her voice and her singing for me. It’s probably what held me together in some ways. The feeling of being displaced or constantly looking for a home is one that is really familiar to me.” For DIALECTS, Szu-Han invites collaborating vocalists to weave together diasporic narratives with abstracted dance beats and harmonies to consider transformations and dynamism in migratory movements.
Szu-Han Ho’s work in performance, sound, installation, and text addresses the practice of exchange through diverse collaborations and constellations. Recent projects include Migrant Songs, a choral performance art piece incorporating stories and songs of human and nonhuman migration; BORDER TO BAGHDAD, an exchange between artists from the US-Mexico border and Baghdad, Iraq; and Shelter in Place, a sculptural installation and performance inspired by her family’s history in Taiwan. Szu-Han lives and works in Albuquerque, New Mexico and is currently Associate Professor in Art and Ecology in the Department of Art at the University of New Mexico.
Sandra Lawson-Ndu is a Nigerian American musician currently based in Oakland CA. As a vocalist and songwriter, she has contributed to and collaborated on a number of live and recorded projects including works with DJ Center ( Everything in Time LP) and Nomadic Wax (Diaspora Mix Tape Volume 2). Currently she is co-leading the band Bells Atlas, who in addition to working on their own music, write original music for the WNYC Snap Judgement tour. She’ll be releasing her solo material, titled Chew FuFu, in 2020.
SAT OCT 26
8PM
CounterPulse
80 Turk Street
San Francisco
Just Ahead is Darkness
Soundwave 9 continues with Just Ahead is Darkness, an evening of episodic performance inspired by how time transforms the relationships between fact, story, and truth.
Inspired by the tradition of bon dances in Hawaii, the evening will feature dance company Sharp & Fine, composer Cory Wright, and author Ben Loory in an interactive theatrical experience. Just Ahead is Darkness uses dance, live music, spoken text, and audience participation to explore how family histories become ingrained in our imaginations and bodies through storytelling and over time.
This performance features excerpts of material being developed for Sharp & Fine’s new evening-length piece inspired by the childhood memories of Megan and Shannon Kurashige (sisters and co-artistic directors) of attending Bon dances with family in Hawaii. Bon dances are part of a Japanese celebration of the spirits of family ancestors and an important part of summer culture on the islands. The full piece will premiere at Z Space, February 7-9, 2020.
“In 2016, we attended a bon dance for the first time in about a decade at an assisted living facility in Maui for seniors with memory loss. Watching seniors do gestures from the dances with their hands, despite having lost so much of themselves and their history, ignited an interest in exploring how stories get passed on through families and how history persists in the body. We are purposefully excavating this cultural and familial material with collaborators from different backgrounds to see what themes and details cross cultures and personal histories.”
Sharp & Fine performers:
- Christian Burns,
- Sonja Dale
- Megan Kurashige
- Shannon Kurashige
- Sarah Woods-LaDue
Composer: Cory Wright
Musicians:
- Steve Adams
- Tim De Cillis
- Cory Wright
Author: Ben Loory
Photo of Sharp & Fine by Benjamin Hersh
$20 | ADVANCE TICKETS
$10- $20 | ADVANCE TICKETS
Photo by Zen Cohen© courtesy of the artist
THU NOV 14
7-10PM
Center for New Music
55 Taylor Street
San Francisco
Nochtlaca:
Todos, todos, todos
Soundwave 9 concludes with artists San Cha, Persia, and Guillermo Galindo explore borders, walls (physical & psychological), and a disruptive “us vs. them” mentality in a multidisciplinary program curated by Christo Oropeza.
The program emphasizes the importance of sound as a vehicle for a shared cathartic experience during difficult times.
Twerk 4 Mother Earth
“Throwing It Back & Forth”
Soundwave 9 kicks off with a special event curated by The House of Malico. Their “Twerk 4 Mother Earth” is an independent dance party series which will connect with the festival theme of “Time” by traveling through three decades of dance music with genre bending DJs: Fela Kutchii, Namaste Shawty, Onmommas, and Red Corvette will produce past, present, and future soundscapes that make the body move.
From 90’s Booty Bass, 2000’s Footwork, to today’s Future Beats, T4ME will ascend in a time travel twerk party for us all to get free.
This is a 21+ event.
No one turned away for lack of funds.
TICKET SALES CLOSED
55 Taylor Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
415-484-6278
[email protected]
EIN 45-0862788
Guidestar Profile