Arts Centre Melbourne Presents Asia TOPA – Music Program

Asia TOPA is particularly excited to be presenting a mammoth program of contemporary music offerings in the 2020 festival. See below.

In an Australian exclusive, Asia TOPA has teamed up with SalamFest to bring one of the greatest spiritual singers alive, Abida Parveen, to Melbourne to perform a rare concert for Western audiences along with her outstanding ensemble at Arts Centre Melbourne's Hamer Hall on 29 February.

There are few artists who are spoken about with the same rapturous fervour as Abida Parveen. Perhaps only her spiritual brother, the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, has inspired the same level of devotion among fans, but Parveen has played a crucial role in the evolution of an art-form traditionally performed by men, paving the way for many young female artists in the Sub-continent explains SalamFest founder Ayesha Bux.

"Parveen has overcome societal, religious and cultural barriers to her art and has amassed an audience worldwide, a ground-breaking reputation and an indisputable reputation. She is beloved just as much as her male peers, if not more," says Bux.

While she specialises in two forms of Sufi poetry that date back centuries - Ghazals and Kafis - Parveen has also attracted ecstatic admirers like Bjork and John Tavener.

For many, Sufi music is a crucial part of their spiritual identity, particular in the Sub-continent region where the genre is most popular. Sufism, as the mystical dimension of Islam, preaches peace, tolerance and pluralism, while encouraging music as a way of deepening one's relationship with the Creator. Based on the mystical branch of Islam, Sufi music seeks to unite listeners with the Divine.

Witnessing an artist of this calibre perform is not only a once-in-a-life time experience, but is a transformative journey that transcends borders, gender, age and faith.

Bookings at asiatopa.com.au

SUBSONIC

In an exclusive program curated for Asia TOPA by Artistic Director of The SUBSTATION Brad Spolding, SUBSONIC will celebrate the founding figures of experimental music today including local, national and International Artists. Each of the five performances span visual arts, experimental music, performance, audio visual and electronic music inviting the audience to see the best of a broad spectrum of experimental work from right across Australia and Asia.

"Across the SUBSONIC series specially curated for Asia TOPA, audiences are invited to view the practice of some of the foundational artists who have shaped and influenced the development of musical genres, from experimental, classical music to noise. By presenting seminal works alongside contemporary performances, the aim is to illustrate how important these artists continue to be and the impact they still have on music today," says Spolding.

The first of these projects takes place at The SUBSTATION where there will be a large scale retrospective exhibition of the work of Akio Suzuki from 30 January - 5 March. Since the early 60s, Japanese sound artist Akio has been performing, building instruments, and presenting sound installations creating aurally driven events which have challenged and influenced generations of artists in his wake. Like his contemporary Japanese pioneers Marginal Consort and Tetsuya Umeda, Akio's work uses chance and improvisation to create compositions, which invite audiences into a deep listening experience provoking his listeners to reconsider their relationships with space and time.

To open the exhibition, Akio will perform with long-time collaborator Aki Onda who is known for his own practice using cassette recordings of found spaces. Aki will perform with Akio for one night only on 31 January.

Following this retrospective, the SUBSONIC series ventures to Arts Centre Melbourne for three grand nights, kicking off with Ryoji Ikeda - datamatics [ver. 2.0] and NONOTAK - Shiro in Hamer Hall on 27 February. Known for his highly visual work, Ikeda will be well known to Australian audiences for his large scale installations at Carriageworks (MICRO | MACRO) and of course spectra at Mona, but for Asia TOPA Ikeda will perform his landmark audio visual performance datamatics [ver. 2.0]; an immersive and hypnotic work which will completely take over Hamer Hall.

Joining Ikeda are duo NONOTAK, presenting their new work Shiro for the first time in Melbourne. Sitting somewhere between architecture, light sculpture and electronic music, Shiro is a large, on-stage installation which visual artist Noemi Schipfer and architect-musician Takami Nakamoto play live. While in Melbourne, they will also be working on a new site specific, permanent installation at The SUBSTATION.

New York-based, Singaporean pianist Margaret Leng Tan will perform a newly commissioned, world premiere work with Melbourne based Chamber Made called Dragon Ladies Don't Weep on 28 February. A protégé of John Cage and long-time muse of George Crumb, this is a sonic portrait of the new music icon and an evocative exploration of memory, time, control and loss. With a 40-year stellar career, Tan is a major force within American avant-garde and experimental musical innovation. Dragon Ladies Don't Weep was created by a team of Singaporean and Australian artists including director Tamara Saulwick, video designer Nick Roux and dramaturg Kok Heng Leun, along with Tan's long-term collaborator, the renowned Brisbane-based composer Erik Griswold. The cross-cultural collaboration combines spoken and recorded text, projected images and original music for prepared piano, toy piano, toys and percussion. Opening the evening is also the world premiere of an international collaboration between Japanese filmmaker Makino Takashi and Australian composer Lawrence English.

With last tickets available, the following night in the Playhouse takes audiences deep into the world of Japanese noise with two masters of the genre, Boris with Merzbow. Renowned noise master Merzbow (Masami Akita) and fellow titans of genre defying heavy music Boris will perform live together in Australia for the first time on 29 February. Collaborators since the late 90s, they've had profound impacts on each other's work. Boris and Merzbow work together to create a wall of noise, meshing Boris' signature heavier sound with Merzbow's intensely visceral noise music. For one night, they will come together and celebrate the darker side of experimental heavy music and Japanese noise.

Local artist CORIN will open the show with her audio visual work Manifest with video artist Tristan Jalleh. Drawing on a background in classical piano, CORIN's live AV performance encompasses technical configurations executed with equal parts emotion and cold precision converging styles ranging from grime and trance, to baroque-laden ambience.

To close the SUBSONIC series, award-winning multimedia artist, writer, public speaker, educator and record label boss Terre Thaemlitz will present two critically acclaimed works, Lovebomb on 12 March and Soulnessless; Cantos I-IV on 13 March, and a survey exhibition at The SUBSTATION from 12 March - 17 April. Thaemlitz's work really does defy classification, spanning musical genres and art forms taking a critical look at identity politics including gender, sexuality, class, linguistics, ethnicity and race through highly visual performances which in turn, resist simplification and take audiences deep into the thinking behind her practice. She has released over 15 solo albums and her works have been published internationally in a number of books, academic journals and magazines.

Arts Centre Melbourne and The SUBSTATION present
Akio Suzuki
30 January - 5 March | The SUBSTATION
For more information visit asiatopa.com.au

Performance with Aki Onda and guests
31 January | The SUBSTATION | 8pm
Bookings at asiatopa.com.au

Arts Centre Melbourne and The SUBSTATION present
Ryoji Ikeda - datamatics [ver. 2.0] and NONOTAK - Shiro
27 February | Hamer Hall | 8pm
Bookings at asiatopa.com.au

Arts Centre Melbourne and The SUBSTATION present
Dragon Ladies Don't Weep
28 February | Playhouse | 7:30pm
Bookings at asiatopa.com.au

Arts Centre Melbourne and The SUBSTATION in association with Room40 present
Boris with Merzbow (last tickets available)
29 February | Playhouse | 8pm
Bookings at asiatopa.com.au

Arts Centre Melbourne and The SUBSTATION present
Terre Thaemlitz - Survey Exhibition
12 March - 17 April | The SUBSTATION
For more information visit asiatopa.com.au

Arts Centre Melbourne and The SUBSTATION present
Terre Thaemlitz - Lovebomb
12 March | The SUBSTATION | 8pm
Bookings at asiatopa.com.au

Arts Centre Melbourne and The SUBSTATION present
Terre Thaemlitz - Soulnessless; Cantos I-IV
13 March | The SUBSTATION | 8pm
Bookings at asiatopa.com.au

The Planet - A Lament

In a world premiere and another of Asia TOPA's commissions, pioneering Indonesian film director Garin Nugroho returns after stunning audiences at Asia TOPA 2017 with Satan Jawa, this time with a stirring and provocative work called The Planet - A Lament from 21 - 22 February.

This staged song cycle merges film with live street dancers from Papua, a 16-voice choir from Kupang and famed Javanese dancer Rianto to impart a moving story of creation set against the backdrop of environmental disaster. Nugroho expands his canvas to portray a destroyed community struggling in the aftermath of a devastating tsunami, events which are still happening today.

"Garin is one of the most important voices in Indonesian cultural life," says Asia TOPA Associate Director Kate Ben-Tovim. "In this work he is reflecting on a community devastated by natural disaster; a very real experience for people considering the horrific last few months of natural disasters in Australia and Indonesia. The work feels even more urgent now."

He performs his alchemical mix of striking cinematics, haunting song, wild dance and ancient ritual to concoct a new myth that speaks to our complex times drawing heavily on the traditions of Eastern Indonesia.

For this extraordinary new work, Nugroho collaborates with composers, visual artists and choreographers from across the Indonesian archipelago alongside Australian theatre luminaries Michael Kantor and Anna Tregloan.

The Planet - A Lament is an act of catharsis that mourns a world lost while offering hope for another that may yet be nurtured in its wake.

Arts Centre Melbourne presents
The Planet - A Lament
21 - 22 February | Playhouse | 7:30pm
Bookings at asiatopa.com.au

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