Dapunta Hyang: Transmission of Knowledge
| Information | Public Lectures | Performances |
Chronicles of Amnesia
A Live Music Performance
Zai Kuning (Singapore) and Mike Cooper (UK)
4 & 5 May 2018, 8pm
In 2005, Riau, a short film that represented Zai Kuning’s search for the orang laut, was premiered at TheatreWorks. While the film has been highly praised and acquired by several institutions, it also marked Zai’s departure from the orang laut as he was mentally tortured by their predicament of being completely isolated.
Zai’s encounters with the orang laut, however, became the driving force for his artistic inquiry of Malay culture and history which are either misunderstood or forgotten. Chronicles of Amnesia is a new film that documents his encounters with a Mak Yong troupe that was on the verge of disappearance, site visits to the old capitals of the Malay-Srivijayan empire, and the making of an imagined vessel from the forgotten 7th century maritime kingdom.
The performance will be a screening of these two films, with live music from Zai and musician Mike Cooper.
Biography
For the past 50 years, Mike Cooper has been an international artistic explorer constantly pushing the boundaries. He plays lap steel guitar and sings, he is an improviser and composer, song-maker, a visual and installation artist; film and video maker and radio arts producer. Initially a folk-blues guitarist he is as responsible as anyone else — and more so than many — for ushering in the acoustic blues boom in the U.K. in the mid ’60s. He has, arguably, stretched the possibilities of that genre even more than his better known contemporaries Davy Graham, Bert Jansch, John Renbourne etc. by pursuing it into the more avant-garde musical areas occupied by guitar innovators such as Elliott Sharp, Keith Rowe, Fred Frith and Marc Ribot, with an eclectic mix of the many styles he has practiced over the years. Ranging freely through free improvisation, his own idiosyncratic original songs, electro-acoustic music, exotica, traditional country blues, folk, pop songs, and ‘sonic gestural’ playing utilising open tunings, extended guitar techniques and electronics.
Free Admission
Please register for this performance at https://dapuntahyangperformance.eventbrite.sg