Transforming Rituals

by Brett Campbell
From the Eugene Weekly

When the Cultural Revolution arrived at his rural village in Hunan, Tan Dun was a prime target. The teenager was educated, after all, and showed artistic inclinations (playing fiddle) and was therefore an object of suspicion to a paranoid, authoritarian regime. Besides, he wanted to be a shaman.

Even in the 1970s, ancient Chinese myths still lived in his isolated village, and when he was a boy, Tan believed that shamans — who conducted ritual ceremonies — could see past and future lives. The Communist regime wanted to sweep aside such "backward thinking." Like so many others, Tan was sent to work on a commune, planting rice with peasants, his musical and intellectual explorations stifled by forced "re-education" in Maoist propaganda.

But they couldn't restrain Tan's creative spirit. He did indeed find inspiration among the peasants — but not what the government intended. Instead, he collected folk music from his neighbors, eventually leading musical performances of ritual occasions such as weddings. Because many musical instruments had been confiscated as vestiges of the old ways, he was forced to rely upon whatever simple folk instruments, and even pots and pans, he could scrounge. Meanwhile, he learned how to play traditional Chinese string instruments.

But Tan seemed fated to spend the rest of his life in isolation, deprived of the cultural infrastructure that could nurture his musical gifts. Then his ship came in, albeit in tragic fashion. The government sponsored tours of Peking opera troupes in each province, and a ferry full of the players headed for his. Suddenly, the ferry capsized; many of the musicians drowned. The call went out for nearby replacements, and Tan was brought back from the countryside to play fiddle with the provincial troupe.

As the Chinese character for "crisis" combines those meaning "danger" and "opportunity," the terrible accident on that river a quarter century ago created an opening for Tan's irrepressible muse.

Not long after, China's shroud of repression began to lift. The national music conservatory reopened, and years of pent-up musical frustration rushed forth as thousands of musicians applied for the 30 available slots in the entering class. Several of the other members of that landmark class have since become renowned musicians, but none have shone as brightly as Tan Dun, who is now regarded as one of the finest composers under age 50 in the world. His amalgamation of Chinese folk influences with Western modernism has produced one of the most compelling musical visions of the 21st century.

Next week, Eugene will have two opportunities to see and hear Tan and his profound musical theater. On Friday, July 5, Tan will conduct the American premiere of his acclaimed Water Passion after St. Matthew. And on Sunday, July 7, he'll conduct the concerto he arranged from his Academy — and Grammy-award winning score for the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, plus two of his intense Orchestral Theater works. Both shows take place at the Hult Center's Silva Hall.

It may seem odd to hear music so deeply influenced by Chinese folk rituals at a festival dedicated to the music of the quintessential European art music composer. But when Tan Dun discovered European classical music in the conservatory, it shook him to his soul. First Beethoven, then on to Bartok, and Shostakovich (another composer who suffered from political oppression).

Then, two especially kindred spirits entered his world. Influenced by his study of the I Ching and Asian music, the American composer John Cage also used "found" instruments, as well as silence, chance, and other unusual techniques to create unique sound universes that made listeners experience music — and the world — differently. One composer deeply affected by Cage was Japan's Toru Takemitsu, who became a mentor to Tan. He also employed silence and toyed with time in his dramatic, spacious evocations of nature and other subjects. Both showed Tan Dun how Western and Eastern concepts could be reconciled in music. His compositions, marked by Chinese musical and mythical themes, began winning national and then international awards, which opened a space for other young Chinese composers.

But the Chinese government condemned Tan for "spiritual pollution" (i.e. Western influences), prohibiting performances of his music. Tan left his homeland a few years later, riding the international reputation of his On Taoism, which earned him a fellowship at Columbia University in 1986.

New York's expanded musical horizons offered Tan still more creative influences. He unleashed a flood of compositions during the 1990s and commissions, performances, recordings and honors followed. He collaborated with artists such as cellist Yo Yo Ma and stage director Peter Sellars, and became the youngest ever winner of the world's most prestigious prize for composers. Tan's work experimented with atonality, strange timbres and combinations of Western and Chinese musical forms and instruments and unusual percussion. He began incorporating elements of Chinese ritual and theater.

And when he composed the soundtrack to Ang Lee's celebrated film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (He was involved in the creative process from the outset.), Tan, like a shaman, helped transform a mystical vision of old China into a powerful contemporary experience.

The July 7 concert features the six-movement concerto for cello, percussion, dizi (a traditional Chinese bamboo flute), and chamber orchestra (including plenty of non-Western instruments) that Tan arranged from his music for Crouching Tiger. It will be accompanied by a new film, directed by Ang Lee drawn from images and outtakes from the movie, plus views of New York and old Beijing.

The concert also features the first two in his series of Orchestral Theatre works, which transform the ritual of a Chinese folk celebration into one of our contemporary Western rituals: a classical music concert. A hallucinatory montage of aural images explodes from the quiet — water and nature sounds, Tibetan chant, silence, Chinese poetry — dramatizing a spiritual ceremony in which the listeners participate, fulfilling Tan's goal of reuniting audience and performer, as in ritual ceremonies .

The most important new music concert in Oregon this year is the performance of his Water Passion on July 5. Rippling with water references from the gospel, this haunting, dramatic sacred music employs a multicultural melange of influences, including Tibetan overtone singing, atonal melodies, the water gong (invented by Cage) and other water percussion, instruments from China and other world cultures, extended cello techniques and unearthly choruses. Challenging, intense, and like nothing you've ever heard, it embraces many of the elements of Tan's life and music — Western and Chinese musical forms, ritual drama (the central ritual of Western civilization, in fact), and of course water — which took a boatload of musicians and opened the door for Tan Dun's success. As Tan stands on the Silva stage conducting this ancient passion play, he will enact his childhood dream: The shaman will transform the past into the present.

Passion Lurks Where Tigers Crouch 
by Lois Wadsworth

Tan Dun composed music for Ang Lee's 2000 action film romance, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, that includes lyrical melodies, plaintive cello solos played by Tan's musical collaborator, Yo Yo Ma, and percussive elements that accentuate the rhythmic, ritualistic power of the actors' martial arts movements in the picture's half-dozen balletic encounters. Lee's mythic vision derived from the movies of his Hong Kong childhood, popular romances that depicted the China of fairy tales overlaid with Taoist thought embodied in supernatural kung fu action. Tan's potent contribution to the film arises out of his quest for a timeless music with its roots in humanity. You may catch a free screening of the film at 7:30 pm on June 30 in the Hult Center's Soreng Theater, compliments of the Oregon Bach Festival.

OBF also brings Tan Dun to the podium to direct his new Crouching Tiger Concerto at 4 pm on July 7 in the Silva Hall in a multi-media presentation that includes a video by the creative team of Ang Lee; writer, producer James Schamus; and videographer Michael Newman. In a reversal of the earlier process of creating the music for the film, here the concerto is used by the filmmakers to make the video. Selected images from the full-length film as well as new shots of contemporary New York and computer-created images of 19th century Beijing make up the short video, which is not yet available to collectors. Cellist Maya Beiser will be the soloist. Also on the program, Tan will conduct the festival orchestra in two orchestral theatre works.

As a film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon lends itself to this sophisticated level of creative interest because it is more than a rousing, good adventure, which it certainly is. But as the cello solos remind us, it is also a tragedy. Two love stories entwine: that of an older couple constrained by custom and propriety and that of a younger couple who defy restraint to pursue passion and power at their own risk. And because the more mature couple also practice an ancient, mystical Taoist art, their unconsummated love assumes a mythic status that elevates the meaning of the whole film, even as it changes the lives of those around them.

Ostensibly centered around the loss and recovery of a secret manual of martial arts, the film's true mystery is that of the human heart. Only during the last moments of life is the great warrior Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun Fat) able to speak of his love to Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh), although they have loved one another for many years. A parallel parting between the rebellious aristocrat and great fighter, Jen (Zhang Ziyi), and her lover, the desert bandit, Lo (Chang Chen), ends more ambiguously. It may be that a noble sacrifice is made, or it may be that a proud one recognizes the depth of spiritual failure and cannot go on.

It's hard for me as a Westerner to fully understand the metaphors used in this film, such as the most obvious: "crouching tigers" and "hidden dragons." Likewise, Li Mu Bai's concern soon after meeting the talented but undisciplined Jen that she may have been "poisoned" by her rogue teacher, Jade Fox (Cheng Pei Pei), who stole the secret book and poisoned Li Mu Bai's teacher.

It's easy as a Westerner to assume the character is speaking metaphorically: the power-seeking teacher poisoned the girl's mind. But at a deeper level, it could refer to a spiritual malaise, not a psychological condition. I am particularly grateful to David Johnson for uncovering the following poem in Opening a Mountain: Koans of the Zen Masters by Steven Heine (Oxford University Press, 2001), which he reviewed for EW's recent reading issue. Note the final image in this "encounter dialogue," a koan by Wang-wei (699-759):

I didn't know where the temple was,
Pushing mile upon mile among cloudy peaks;
Old trees, Unpopulated paths,
Deep mountains, somewhere a bell.
Brook voices choke over craggy boulders,
Sunrays turn cold in the green pines.
At dusk by the bend of a deserted pond,
A monk in meditation, taming poisonous dragons. – Wang-Wei

Like this simple poem, the images and ideas in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon continue to open themselves up to new interpretations. While it's tempting to imagine that we understand the film as a martial arts fantasy, that is probably misleading. I urge you to view the film with an open heart, which may lead to a deeper understanding of the film.

Besides seeing the film in its entirety, we will also have the opportunity to hear Tan Dun's six-movement triple concerto, arranged from the score to the movie, and to see the images selected by the filmmakers to represent the film. I look forward to gaining new inspiration about the movie from this compact format, a distillation of sound and image that promises pleasure, if not enlightenment, to the viewer.