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| Thursday, June 04, 2009
Three Things featuring Dawn Fung Writer: Dawn FungI have always been inspired by people rather than work. When I see an art, I "see" the person behind the work, and usually that is a deciding factor in my analysis of art. By "seeing", I also mean thinking about their projected personas as artists/performers, relationship to the work, and probably aspects of their emotions, or what I perceive as vulnerable to the receiver. That's why my top 3 picks of inspiring art start with people. 1. Wong Young Tseng and Sharmini Diaz in The Giving Tree (2004, unsure) I chanced upon this by accident. I am so proud to say that I never watched them perform on a stage in front of an audience, but was in a studio while they were rehearsing. I think I may have gone into the studio once occupied by Mime Unlimited to get a black box, and there YT and Sham were, a mime and storyteller, enacting something intimate that escapes a paid audience. Shel Silverstein's story may bring a tear to your eye but watching a rehearsal of The Giving Tree by a husband and wife team may stop you in your tracks completely. Because there are no pictures from this rehearsal, and thankfully never will, I will do my best to describe what transpired according to the way I liked it. YT in black t-shirt and pants, Sham sitting down or standing up, I cannot remember, but reciting the lines off Silverstein. Her voice is slow, clear, and comforting (that type of old bolster smelling of sweat, mum, and old houses). And "the tree said to the boy" repeated a few times - Sham would have sounded perfectly fine without the mime counterpart but how the tree spoke! YT's lines are crisp. Whatever Thomas Leabhart had done to his body in training, one must see to believe. But stout YT at a sprightly age of 40 + is strong. In fact, he is the tree. His arms extend like soft, hard lines towards the fingertips. These branches are anchored in a most flexible trunk, able to bend here and there especially when cut, or transformed into an aging boy. I recently tried to do a lousy version for fun in an English class with a bewildered Chinese boy who was the tree. I, the boy, was aghast at my swing off the branches, and thereabout understood how a poor action is only good for vocabulary lessons. The best turns are via the elbow sharply, torque or twist around the waist and once in a while, a swift turnaround into another character. YT's expressions are rather Byzantine - flat and strategic; happy is an open mouth, sadness is doleful eyes. The Giving Tree by YT and Sham probably would not stand up against hours of Derevo or Marceau's quiet shapes, yet it is a wonder to behold in memory like something good to recall in one's last days. I remember now asking Sham it was something that would be shown in public, and the reply was lovely, "Perform for children for free... not something for sale... story is precious to us." The answer is entirely not accurate nor in order but it is evocative. There is a rhythm between the man and the woman actors, the voice and the action, framed by an conscious secret between husband and wife... and I got to see it. 2. Anne Briggs & The Snow It Melts the Soonest Another secret to fall headlong into is Anne Briggs. Her kind of persona fascinated me since young because I never liked the guy who's on the top of the charts but the one who showed him there, like Warwick in Richard III, Zhuge Liang and Elijah... as if the prophet or the sage seemed to have more power. I see now why I'd rather organise a contest than join one, because the American idol is really a pawn in the Cowell's treasure hunt/game. Briggs who inspires - rather than plans - an English folk revival in the 60s and 70s, is my kind of hero. Many youtube links would attest to her voice - moving resonance amidst strange accents that drive wistfulness towards an exploding colour. That's why I manually play her tracks on myspace.com/annebriggs on repeat. Whether or not accompanied by music, her voice is evocative of longing. Bert Jansch, Nick Drake, Sandy Dennis are great finds, but Anne Briggs is their influence and that makes all the difference. "She Moved Through the Fair" (1963) on youtube shows a young Anne Briggs quite ordinary and beautiful at the same time. I'm talking about the pictures you see, not just the sound. Like remembrance, the black and white photos capture Anne Briggs the-way-it-ought-to-be for listeners who are still searching. Lastly, Briggs' ability to say no to fame - including pressure from Jo Lustig, Sony, fans, and peer requests - is admirable. As a mother, I know how it feels to suddenly be aware of priorities in life, but to put fame down as if it shouldn't matter is a revelation few know how to handle. The music industry is a fragmented with opinions, many of which coerce you into the limelight for profit and public adoration. Briggs' love for her own peace and quiet way of life teaches us that a true legacy should be critically analysed years down the road. I love it that she's not a one off - her tenacity to be herself, her elusiveness and mystery has led to an unshakeable following, from geniuses to Japanese fans. Therefore I present The Snow it Melts the Soonest as one of my favourite images from the British folk revival. An old ballad traced to a Newcastle street singer, the version sung by Anne Briggs is perfect. Oh the snow it melts the soonest when the winds begin to sing And the corn it ripens fastest when the frosts are setting in And when a young man tells me that my face he'll soon forget Before we part, I'd better croon, he'd be fain to follow it yet Oh the snow it melts the soonest when the winds begin to sing And the swallow skims without a thought as long as it is Spring But when Spring blows and Winter goes my lad and you'd be fain With all your pride for to follow me, were it 'cross the stormy main Oh the snow it melts the soonest when the winds begin to sing And the bee that flew when Summer shone in Winter he won't sing And all the flowers in all the land so brightly there they be And the snow it melts the soonest when my true love's there for me So never say me farewell here, no farewell I'll receive You can meet me at the stile, you kiss and take your leave And I'll wait it till the woodcock crows or the martin takes its leave Since the snow it melts the soonest, when the winds begin to sing 3. Bob Dylan & Mr Tambourine Man Mr Tambourine Man by Bob Dylan I think it was Mojo that did a definitive guide of 100 top Dylan songs and ended up with Like A Rolling Stone. I wonder if the people ever knew that one Jewish man with a weird voice from a small town in America would end up one of its biggest enigma. And I can quote this with ease, as with any Dylan fan, "with no direction home, a complete unknown, like a rolling stone..." is apt of what we make of Dylan. It's not his song that makes art, but his persona - a public figure so inconsistent in interviews down the years, that even answers from past loves like Suzy Rotolo and Joan Baez in Martin Scorcese's No Direction Home is ambivalent at best. His imageries are amazingly lucid and antonymic. "That he not busy being born is busy dying" from It's Alright Ma, is a common style of Dylan echoing an (American) generation entering uncomfortable times - Vietnam War, desegregation, assassination of Luther King Jr and JFK. Here's merely verse one : Darkness at the break of noon Shadows even the silver spoon The handmade blade, the child's balloon Eclipses both the sun and moon To understand you know too soon There is no sense in trying. This stark kind of writing easily comes out of Dylan, leaving a trail of seven to ten verses (compared to the weak stamina of today's songs). Mind you, that was 1965. If we see now the free verse types abound, it was because Dylan broke some sort of jar, and freed songwriting from obvious rhyming to new images juxtaposed by it. So I think, Dylan's too big to trace to one inspiring work, but if I had to, it would be Tambourine Man. One article that I read recounts the conversation between Leonard Cohen and Dylan. Both were mutual admirers of each other's talents and each asked the other for the time taken to create Hallelujah and Tambourine Man. I think it was Dylan who asked first and Cohen said "two years" or something long like that. When asked about Tambourine Man, Dylan's mythic reply of "a day" seems to negotiate for me, a certain appreciation on why certain songs deserve longevity even if it had been constructed overnight; when Dylan sang Tambourine Man in a Newport Folk Festival workshop, it gave the song a pole position in Dylan's shift from protest music to something else, under the gaze of Pete Seeger and other folk songwriters whose idea of folk music was a symbol of the left. The lyrics are intoxicating, and somehow, I imagine Dylan as the Tambourine Man while he deftly stands alongside him, observing a dance on "ancient empty streets too dead for dreaming". (Read : Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan : Poetry and the Popular Song by Frank Davey, December 1969, http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2667/art1.htm, viewed on 5 June 2009)
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