Visiting professor and TIMARA alum Ami Dang hasn’t let the pandemic stop her from collaborating and performing. One small slice of positivity to come out of the past year has been the increasing opportunities to play virtual concerts and foster a music community online, and Dang has been working on a number of exciting projects to look forward to. On Thursday, April 29, Dang will perform via livestream as part of the Mission Creek Festival’s virtual show DUOS . The festival will run for two days and feature both musicians and writers both performing and speaking about their work. Dang will be performing four works, two from her most recent full-length album Parted Plains, and two new, unreleased songs. DUOS pairs two artists together to have a conversation about their creative practice. She will be speaking with poet Donika Kelly about their individual processes and teaching.
Earlier this year, Dang was invited to participate in the series Imaginal Soundtracking, released through the record label Phantom Limb, in which artists are asked to re-score forgotten cinema works. Along with four other artists, she was given the task of reimagining the sound to the Japanese experimental stop-motion animated film “The Demon” (1972) by master puppeteer Kihachiro Kawamoto. All five interpretations of the film are compiled into an album which can be found here.
“Professionally, the pandemic has brought a whirlwind of ups and downs. I had more than forty performances in the US, Canada, and Europe and a residency in Belgium get canceled. But many silver linings emerged, including this opportunity to teach in the TIMARA program”which was a formative experience for me as a student that has proven to be a lasting influence”as well as a number of other exciting projects and gigs, like livestreams, sound design and other creative work. Re-scoring the on-screen version of the traditional Japanese folktale ‘The Demon’ was an interesting exercise as a composer and particularly exciting because I have been very influenced by folklore in previous work. The narrative and visual aesthetic of this harrowing story also prompted me to develop a sound palette that is dark and bittersweet through noisy textures and dissonant, wavering tonalities. I feel truly blessed for the opportunities that I’ve had in the past year, but I would be remiss not to check my privilege: these circumstances are truly a result of the great deal of privilege I have experienced throughout my life.”