Global Sonic Culture
Sonic Experience
“For what was lost in the past, let’s appeal to cherish the future forever.”
Crested ibis is a beautiful and precious asian specie symbolising pleasant and auspiciousness, is known as the ‘bird of good fortune’. It is a large white-plumaged ibis of pine forests, native to eastern Asia. Its head is partially bare, showing red skin, and it has a dense crest of white plumes on the nape. Due to modernisation and urbanisation, the birds gradually faded away from our sight and they were on the edge of extinction.
The sonic experience which was unforgettable and thrilling was a traditional dance drama called Crested ibis, presented by Shanghai dance theatre, of two acts will recreate the elegance and subtleness of the birds through traditional Chinese aesthetics. The stage design were traditional Chinese mountains and water paintings and moving branches. Overhead lights sometimes spread across the stage like patches of light between leaves. Aside from all the plot and lighting design, when the crest ibis standing in a row, it is enough to reflect the shock of intangible cultural heritage.
Ma Yue stated:”The work is one of the dance theater’s most frequently performed productions, hailed for its artistic achievement and its tribute to Sino-Japanese efforts to save the crested ibis from extinction.” In Man and the crested ibis: a dance of eco-aspiration. Chen Feihua, Shanghai Dance Theater’s director, also shared the story behind the creation of “Crested Ibises” in an interview ahead of the performances. “The idea came when I visited the 2010 Shanghai World Expo,” said Chen. “The Japanese pavilion had the crested ibis as its theme. I was impressed by the story of how China and Japan had joined hands decades ago to protect the endangered bird.Through the collaboration of classic ballet and Chinese traditional dancing of crested ibises’ beauty, purity and grace, it reminds people to reflect on the interdependence between human beings and nature. We sincerely hope that the top of the food chain——human beings will be the watcher for the homeland for all creatures on the earth, especially the covid-19 had aimed that we were punished by nature because of our development of technology.
The music was fabulous and it was a collaboration with traditional Chinese music and western orchestra. The background music has an intense impetus, the heavy metallic keys and drums make the background with normal live settings of violins, gradually added the volume of cello and double bass to express sadness and depression. Then it added the representative Chinese instruments of pipa and flute to join the articulated gestures of dancers, which was amazing. There were no sound effects in the dance drama, but the foot steps and the sound of bones’ movements were illustratively collected by the spacial speakers. The melodies were quite traditional of the keys 36 35323176 7653, and there were Chinese lyrics in the end which was very suitable with its own-means (like a poetry) but were not my favourite part.
The expressive choreography makes the crested ibis is a symbol, representing mankind’s pursuit of harmonious coexistence with all other species.
The sonic experience let me focus on my essay on the topic ‘mine’: Mime, strength, and mute expression become nothing but only performing using body movements, gestures, and facial expressions. Equally so in every way does it apply to the Dramatic Art, which minus its acting, its gestures—in a word, its mime—we have nothing but, to quote Hamlet, “Words, words, words.” If there was music, there must also have been dancing, and there must, in the Antediluvian age, as a form of entertainment, have also been mime. (Broadbent, 2004)
Also on spacial harmony and body movements which I was over-watching. Something I also might be interested, would be how different perspectives would be looked at, for example: Dancer themselves? Choreographer? Director? Sound Producer? What is the relationship of the sound for stage design related to each of the different roles? How does contemporary sound design affect people’s body movements and directions in elements from body and space?