Creating a piece that can be experienced through space

I will now tell you about a piece that I composed in 2007 called What Makes The Spider Spin Her Web. It only involved one performer, which was myself. The theme was the crisis of femininity in modern times. For this piece the theater set was an important element and was a box that was 4m wide x 2m high x 2m deep and was covered with transparent silk.

The silk was thin enough for the audience to look inside and had some lighting above. It was also thick enough to be a video screen when I turned off the lights. The two projectors were generating moving images on the front and backsides of the box.

During the performance, I was sitting and moving inside the box. There were only two objects – a traditional weaving machine that women use to make silk in Vietnam and a hanging dress. A very specific lighting script formed part of the composition.

What Makes The Spider Spin Her Web

Although the audience only saw what appeared to be a two dimensional stage, it was actually a three dimensional box. What the audience saw was actually a mixture of moving images on the front and back screens, the lighting and the act inside the box.

It’s always hard to document my work on film because then it all became two dimensions moving images on film. It’s important that audience has to experience the piece at the site.

Building upon the musicians’ intentions – Together Alone

I will now speak briefly about some other pieces. Together Alone was a conceptual music-theater piece. I worked in detail with ten musicians for one month. I asked them to find their own music material in order to create their own portrait through sound.

That was a crucial rule. I helped each musician explore his or her own portrait. They chose their own materials, sounds and appearance on stage – including their costume,

Together Alone

For example, the percussionist chose to be a doctor because that image was most intimate to his personality. There was also a diver, a professor, an angel with wings, a chef, and a widowed bride. The musicians performed side-by-side on stage and interacted in relation to one another.

My Chau’s World was another piece about a woman. This piece was composed as a commission from Ensemble Musikfabrik from Berlin. Musicfabrik are a small-scale chamber ensemble with seven members that perform contemporary music. They commissioned me to compose a piece for them to perform in Vietnam. This image shows me playing the main female role of vocalist.

CON OEE is a music-theater piece in a different format. My music-theater pieces usually last for about an hour on stage but this one was only 20 minutes long and was set up in the museum in an exhibition format. It was more like a music installation with elements of poetry reading, music, sound, video art, theater and acting. The audience had to enter the room to see the piece, which happened all around them on the walls and space.

Vietnam’s first experimental music event

The last thing I want to share is the Hanoi New Music Festival, which is organised by DomDom every two years. Three years ago I founded DomDom as the first center for experimental music in Vietnam. This festival is one of productions of DomDom and is a center stage for experimental music and music-related mixed media art in Vietnam. I will now show you the promotion video for the festival.

Hanoi New Music Festival

Thank you very much for listening!