for violin, electronics and video (or dance)
- Premiere performance by Gloria Pang (choreographer and dance) and Stella Tsui (dance) on 16 April (8pm), 17 April (4pm/ 8pm) and 18 April (2pm/ 4pm) 2021 at McAulay Studio, Hong Kong Arts Centre
- Performed by Patrick Yim on 22 June 2021 at McAulay Studio, Hong Kong Arts Centre
- Radio broadcast by RTHK Radio 4 on 28 August 2021 in the programme “Near and Afar” at 10pm.
- Performed by 현혜연 Hyeyeon Hyun, 신희경 Heekyung Shin, 김유진 Yujin Kim, 김혜령 Hyeryung Kim at the 5th JICMA Festival 2022 on 21 October 2022 at Jeju, Korea.
- Present at The Performing Media Festival on 10 March 2023 at Langlab, South Bend, Indiana, US at 7pm.
Violin recorded by Patrick Yim.
Programme Notes
“This is All About That Monster” started as a collaboration between Gloria Pang, a choreographer, and I in early 2021. At the beginning Gloria sent me a few clips of her improvised movements with Stella Tsui, another dancer, and she mentioned to me that she would like to create a dance work that focuses on her inner self. While I was watching their rehearsal clips, I was fascinated by the movements of their limbs—sometimes stretched, sometimes cramped, and sometimes almost as if they were fractured. That reminds me of a scene that I see everyday on the train—people are, unwillingly, squeezed together, and everyone on the train merges to become the flesh of the cold-blooded moving train. With that in mind, I sampled some sounds from Hong Kong MTR trains, including the train announcements (in various languages), the sound of the closing doors, and then juxtaposed with the iconic Hong Kong traffic light sound (and of course, again, manipulated electronically). The violin, on top of all the busy sounds, serves as the main voice of the monster, which could be the train, the merged flesh, or my imagination of Gloria’s inner self.
Austin Yip 