Wan-Chao Dance - Impression

About the project "Impression"

"繁忙的台北街頭, 蜂擁車陣人潮, 不間斷的車聲人語。她，獨自佇立街頭。

曾經懷抱夢想而離鄉探索，走過舊金山，行吟巴爾幹，著迷於印尼的多面，終在西亞流連徘徊。不同的臉孔川流而過，最後卻再也分不清誰是誰… 再回到故鄉，已認不清身在何處。只想撥開層層吵雜的簾幕找塊安靜的地方落腳, 卻壓不住腦海中一幕幕過往神遊的畫面, 起身再度漫遊…"

“The crowds, noises, lights, the smog of Taipei! I am foraging my hometown for a quiet place to settle, but sequences from my past journeys keep coming back before my eyes… And then I find myself: once again I am walking toward the unknown...”

離鄉十五年的張婉昭,結合世界民俗與現代元素的舞蹈語彙描繪出近年所經歷的探索旅程。

Having returned to Taiwan after 15 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, Wan-Chao Dance is presenting a new work with traditional ethnic dance forms of Indonesia, China, the Balkans, and Western Asia, and blending in the contemporary dance elements she was exposed to during her stay in the U.S. This new piece describes the inner and outer journey one has to make when seeking one's cross-continental roots.

特邀德籍音樂家卡(Klaus Bru) 參與此新作創作演出。

With Special Guest (Composer/Musician): Klaus Bru

Sunday, Sep. 9, 2012
Saturday, Sep. 15, 2012

學校咖啡館 Ecole Cafe,
台北市青田街一巷6號 No. 6, Lane 1, Qingtian St., Daan District, Taipei, Taiwan

台北藝穗節 Taipei Fringe Festival http://www.taipeifringe.org
Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/328338630591256

About the Artists

Wan-Chao Chang (Choreographer, Dancer)

Klaus Bru 卡 (C-Melody & C-Soprano Sax, Electronics)

Photo: YU-CHI LEE

German born Klaus Bru (卡 = Kaa) has traveled widely, for real and in music. He is a being with a broad range of interests, an artist not easily categorized: saxophonist, composer, sound artist, songwriter and writer, organizer and promoter for cross-cultural projects. This biography deals with Klaus Bru, the saxophone player, composer, and jazz artist.Klaus Bru plays only non-transposing saxophones, the rare C-melody sax and the even rarer C-soprano sax. His artistic output is characterized by its variety, and his musical concepts are not exactly the “out-of-the-box” type. Klaus Bru rather uses odd combinations of “boxes” that differ in size, contrast in contents, and clash in color: He brings in the folk music of the world (typically from Eastern Europe, Turkey, and Arab Countries), Avant-garde ridden improvisation concepts, cold blooded electronic noises and feedbacks, sounds of breath and saliva, pitches smaller than the distance between two keys on the piano, strange meters and odd tempos, plus -- when the time has come for it -- simple, singable melodies over moving chords.

Klaus Bru was born in the 1960’s near Lake Constance in Southern Germany. He got drilled as a jazz saxophonist at the Music University in Graz/Austria, and graduated with distiction in 1988. His teachers included Roman Schwaller, Adelhard Roidinger, David Liebman, Kenny Wheeler, his fellow students Franz Hautzinger, Peter Herbert, Lars Lindvall, Martin Stepanik, Heinrich von Kalnein.From 1988-95 Bru lived in Vienna/Austria. He was a well-known protagonist of the Austrian Jazz scene in the 1990’s. With keyboarder Martin Stepanik he collaborated in the experimental duo ‘2 Face 2’. Several European radio stations recorded Bru’s compositions and band projects.

In 1996 Klaus Bru relocated to Berlin, leaving the saxophone aside and focusing on sound art and electronic music. He produced the interactive sound/media/live music installation ‘Tiefenrausch’, worked with sound artists and film makers, and published a CD with electronic music (‘Collective Items’, 1998). With Oliver Doerell of Dictaphone he composed the music for ‘The Lefthanded Man’, a dance piece which got invited to perfom in Taipei/Taiwan in May 2001.

In 2002 Klaus Bru moved to Asia to live in Taipei. His focus shifted to writing literature, and to his tasks as a cultural manager for the Goethe Institute Taiwan. Later, while working as a promoter for the Chinese music ensemble Chai Found Music Workshop (采風樂坊) he became infused with the sound of Chinese instruments, and developed a general interest in indigenous music from around the world. In 2010, while on a trip to San Francisco, he discovered in a pawn shop an antique C-Melody Sax. Since then, Klaus Bru performs exclusicely on C-saxophones.

As a musician in Taiwan, Bru composed film and theater scores, and played with the main exponents of the Taiwanese jazz and improvisation scene. In 2010, he set up the jazz trio ‘I have a new band now’, which has been performing all over Taiwan. Together with pianist Lee Shih-Yang (李世揚) he leads the improvisation group Ka Dao Yin (卡到音), which stands at the crossroads of Contemporary Classical Music, Jazz, and Chinese Folk Music. In Taiwan, Bru has also performed with Japanese drummer legend Sabu Toyozumi, and experimental pipa player Luo Chao-Yun.

By the end of 2011, Bru relocated to Europe with a stopover in Istanbul/Turkey, where he performed with guitarist Bilal Karaman and many other Istanbullu musicians. Klaus Bru currently lives in Vienna/Austria.

Other Current Bands & Projects (August 2012)

I have a new band now

Jazz trio with amplified saxophone, bass guitar, and drums.

Inspired by the analogue sounds of the 1970’s, I have a new band now plays an odd variant of jazz combined with rock, balkan music, dixieland, blues, noise, and what else not. Martijn Vanbuel from Belgium is on bass guitar, Pietro Valente from Italy on drums. All Music written by Klaus Bru. I have a new band now is available for Concerts in Europe from January 20-30, 2013.

ihaveanewbandnow.com

Ka Dao Yin (卡(到音)

Improvisation Ensemble at the crossroads of Contemporary Classical Music, Jazz, and Chinese Folk Music.

Klaus Bru co-leads this international improvisation group with pianist Lee Shih-Yang (李世揚). Ka Dao Yin’s first CD ‘Four Characters’ has won critical acclaim for creating intriguing musical counterparts to widely used

Chinese proverbs and bywords.

kadaoyin.bandcamp.com

Discography

As a Leader