From mad reality comes the sanity of art. “My whole village was crazy,” writes composer Tan Dun. “We had a professional crying team available for hire at funerals and deaths…a shamanistic choir to set the mournful tone.” In Chinese folk culture, “ghosting” is a verb: an active conversation with the spirits of the past and the hereafter.
In Tan’s composition “Ghost Opera”, part of the first concert presented in the IMA’s newly renovated Tobias Theater this Friday, gongs talk to splashing water (yes, water); stones talk to cymbals, and the breath of a monk talks to a Chinese lute (a pipa). It’s going to be a visually stunning, dramatically lit piece in which the musicians won’t be sitting still.
Photo courtesy of Nana Watanabe
