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I was recently cleaning out my apartment and was trying to decide on what to do with objects related to my projects/work that are not crucial to performance. I spent about 2 months creating a toy theater set that is the grounds for movie-making in The Memoirist part 2. I wasn’t sure what to do with this toy theater set in my cluttered NY apartment.

I decided to clean it up and take a few pictures before I was going to throw it out. As I was straightening up the set, I remembered how cumbersome it was to bring a fragile cardboard box-house to New York when moving here two years ago. I had to pack up the objects in the cardboard house as if it was going through a house move like I was. I kept wavering between keeping it and throwing it away…on one hand it is part of an artistic project that I made, on the other hand it is completely useless to every day life. I thought of the Temporary Toy Theater Museum that is part of the International Toy Theater Festival and decided to submit these materials to them as one last “hoorah” before it left my home. And to my great surprise and delight, they accepted it!

Hosted by Great Small Works, the Toy Theater Festival is one of the most interesting theater movements of our time. This is what they say…

TOY THEATER: THE GRANDEST OF TALES  WITH THE SIMPLEST OF MEANS

Toy Theater (also called Paper Theater) was the rage in parlors across Europe and the Americas in the 19th century, a popular means of staging dramatic spectacles at home. But, just as revolutions in print technology had brought toy theater into 19th-century homes, 20th-century advances in electronic media and mass culture led to the virtual extinction of this inexpensive family entertainment. The small box used to stage sumptuous dances, battles and stories in the parlor was replaced by an all-too-familiar box in the modern living room. Fantastic in scope, easily affordable and open to any imaginable content, toy theater begs to be rescued from obscurity and re- invented in a wide variety of contemporary styles. Join Great Small Works in this exciting revival!

What’s funny about the house from The Memoirist is that I didn’t even know of toy theater when I was making it. I was simply making a miniature set from the things I had laying around my apartment at that time. You can only imagine how strangely re-affirming it was to see a full-blown sold out festival of toy theater 2 years later in New York. I really can’t dream of a better place for this small set piece to be before it becomes recycled to the earth once again. The set design and the video featuring the movie from The Memoirist will be on view from May 30-June 14 at St. Ann’s Warehouse. We open on May 28th so come out and celebrate with me! I’m sure the entire festival and museum will be an absolute delight!

A couple of days ago, Rob and I both received our own mysterious package in the mail addressed to us.  I opened it up and there was a key of a piano in there. We had been abducted into an art project by our friends Shelley Harrison and Jeremy Kennedy (as a duo, aka Kneeshy) called Keys to the 88th.

The idea behind the piece is that Kneeshy gave 1 key from a piano to 88 different people (presumably around the country.) We are given complete artistic freedom to come up with what we want to do with each key, whether it be a performance, a sculpture or whatever else. On May 1st, we are to mail these keys back (or the documentation of what happened to them) to Kneeshy in Los Angeles where they will have an art show displaying the various interpretations of each individual key.

I was totally in love with the idea right away. I have always thought Kneeshy did really inventive and playful artistic pieces that involved community and friends.  This particular piece has a certain resonance to me because it comes from a piano. I had never really seen the back side of a piano key or studied the wood grain on the sides that are below the key bed and unpainted. It made me think of the idea behind the word “key” and how a “key” is just a tool to get from one place to another. In the case of a piano, it is the first step to a number of mechanical movements to produce a sound (hammer striking string.)  I will write again when the installation is up!

Next week I will be performing at Barbés with glass musician/improviser/electronic musician Miguel Frasconi. I have been looking forward to doing something with Miguel for quite some time. I came across his music for the first time while I was at Indiana looking for CD’s to play on my experimental music radio program. His first record on New Albion Records was in the library. The CD begins with a glass improvisation and I was sold instantly. He later includes a variety of instruments including mbira, toy pianos (of course), voice and others. He is probably one of the only people I know that has about as many toy pianos as I do.

Since I will be bringing my very first toy piano to my gig next week, I wanted to find the right repertoire for this particular instrument. My first toy piano is a 2 and a half octave baby grand Schoenhut with a very shallow touch. I have picked several pieces that sound quite good on the instrument, including  Milliampere by Dai Fujikura and …with the silences of the fishes by Ken Ueno. I haven’t performed either piece before, so come out and hear some new tunes!

While I was in Taiwan, I met Lee, the Schoenhut toy piano dealer, who scheduled a TV interview for me with channel 50 news in Taipei. It was going to be their first feature story on the toy piano. I was quite nervous to talk about the toy piano in Chinese and thankfully all of their outtakes were of me speaking English. The TV shoot took place in the basement of the Ecole Cafe, a music/arts/movie venue that I performed at last year. Since I didn’t bring a toy piano with me this trip, Lee brought a toy piano for me to perform from his shop. The news-makers work quickly in Taiwan! It was aired  just hours later on the evening news that night. I will post the video on my site in the next couple of weeks. Until then, here are a few photos.

Rob and I just made our journey back to Taipei for the week. I will be meeting with a Schoenhut toy piano dealer from Taiwan tomorrow! Check out their site here.

I have quite a lot of memories coming back to Taiwan to visit family throughout my childhood. I still remember the long flights I would take with my brother while we excitedly anticipated the great home-cooked meals we would have of our Grandma’s. It was also customary for us to make an additional trip to southern Taiwan to visit my father’s family for several days. Back then, there wasn’t a high-speed train, so it would sometimes mean taking a 14-hour bus ride. Some years later, my father came back to Taiwan while on sabbatical and the entire family came back to live for six months. I attended fifth grade  at Chiang-Kai Shek Middle School right outside of Taipei city. I still remember having a hard time grasping the disciplinary acts of teachers. On Fridays, my brother and I would go to Taiwan University for our traditional chinese bamboo flute lessons. This was probably the only period of time I studied Chinese music whatsoever. Years following, our lives became busier and the visit back to Taiwan became less frequent. When I was younger,  I felt there were so many cultural differences–not just the language, but the way of life, the way people dressed, acted and bought.  The traffic driving behavior was always daunting. There use to be a lot more bicyclists also. I don’t know whether it’s because I have grown more accustomed to some of the differences, or if it’s the result of a rapidly changing country, but Taiwan doesn’t seem so distant or foreign to me any longer. My relationship with the country has changed significantly since my parents moved back here seven years ago. Since then, the eating part of our visits are still highly anticipated, but now I am getting more of a chance to know modern Taiwan.

Just starting last year,  I have started looking for more of the new developments in the music and arts scene from the younger generation. (The web has helped tremendously and also the number of Taipei websites that are in English.) I was pleased when someone contacted me last year through facebook to set up a toy piano concert for me. It was just a chance happening and a kind act of strangers who wanted to bring a toy piano concert some place in Taipei.  It turned out to be a joint effort between a student at National Taiwan University (Timmy Chen) and the curator of a music and movie series (Taven Huang) at a cafe. Though this was just a small glimpse into the younger music-goers, I was touched and excited to see a generation of people curious about experimental music in Taiwan.

Anyone know of good shows happening in Taiwan this week? We are open to suggestions!