5542 Mosse Humanities Building 455 N. Park Street Madison, WI 53706 www.arts.wisc.edu
For Immediate Release: November 12, 2008
CONTACT: Kate Hewson, (608) 263-9290, kahewson@wisc.edu
MADISON— On Saturday November 22, 2008 at 7:30pm, Fall 2008 Interdisciplinary Artist in Residence Fred Ho will present “Revolutionary Earth Music and Performance: People and the Planet before Profit!” at the Wisconsin Union Theater, 800 Langdon Street. The concert features his Afro Asian Music Ensemble from New York, a new work by Ho’s UW-Madison students, and a collaborative work with UW-Madison Dance Program instructor Peggy Choy. The concert is free and open to the public.
The students of Fred Ho’s course “Revolutionary Afro Asian Spoken Word and Performance,” who come from disciplines as diverse as art, veterinary medicine, and religious studies, will perform the new work “Future Forward: The Revolution Is Political, Personal and Cellular!” One of nine students involved, Journalism and Theater major Leah Cowen, contributes her original piece “Fly Free” about religious discrimination in the Jewish community. In addition, Biology and Theater major Dominique Chestand offers her piece “Brotha Named Brown,” and Religious Studies major Dolores Ohmans presents a work about her hopes for men’s liberation from societal gender roles. This spoken word-based interdisciplinary suite was created by the students and directed by Fred Ho, and will also be performed December 4th at Madison East High School.
UW-Madison students will perform Peggy Choy’s world premier of “Tribunal,” a dance work in two parts. The work connects 3 tragic occurrences by paying tribute to Cambodians who suffered during the Pol Pot regime holocaust in 1975, Filipinos who suffered on the Bataan Death March during World War II, and Japanese Americans who were interned in American concentration camps during World War II. Theatre and Drama professor David Furumoto collaborated on this piece.
Founded in 1982 by Fred Ho, the Afro Asian Music Ensemble draws inspiration from the national liberation struggles of Third World nations. The Ensemble features Fred Ho (baritone saxophone), Bobby Zankel (alto saxophone), Salim Washington (tenor saxophone), Royal Hartigan (multiple percussion), Art Hirahara (keyboards), and Wes Brown (bass). The group, which has released 7 CDs and a DVD, will perform works including “Tomorrow Is Now!,” excerpts from “The Black Panther Suite,” and “The Underground Railroad To My Heart Suite.”
The Arts Institute Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program brings innovative artists to campus to teach semester-long, interdepartmental courses and to publicly present their work for campus and community audiences. The Fred Ho Residency is co-sponsored by the Asian American Studies Program and the School of Music. Subsidiary co-sponsors include the Dance Program, the Department of Theatre and Drama, and the Department of Afro-American Studies. This concert is funded by the Office of the Chancellor, Office of the Vice-Chancellor of Administration, and the Asian American Studies Program.
RELATED UPCOMING EVENT
Wednesday, November 19, 4 p.m.
Bill Mullen lecture and discussion:
“Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political and Cultural Connections Between African Americans and Asian Americans”
Bill Mullen is director of American Studies & English at Purdue University and co-editor with Fred Ho of the book "Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political and Cultural Connections Between African Americans and Asian Americans" just published by Duke University.
TITU (“Afro/Asia Lecture”), Memorial Union, 800 Langdon Street.
More information: (608) 263-1755 or pachoy@wisc.edu
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
FRED HO is a one-of-a-kind revolutionary Chinese American baritone saxophonist, composer, writer, producer, political activist, and leader of the Afro Asian Music Ensemble and the Monkey Orchestra. Ho is breaking new ground in the world of contemporary music while remaining committed to political and social transformation. For two decades, he has innovated a new American multicultural music embedded in the most soulful and transgressive forms of African American music, with musical influences of Asia and the Pacific Rim. In addition to founding the Afro Asian Music Ensemble in 1982 and the Monkey Orchestra in 1990, Ho co-founded the Brooklyn Sax Quartet in 1997. In 2005, he founded Caliente! Circle Around the Sun, featuring poets Magdalena Gomez and Raul Salinas.
Ho is co-editor with Ron Sakolsky of Sounding Off! Music as Subversion/Resistance/Revolution, which won the 1996 American Book Award, and lead editor of Legacy to Liberation: Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian/Pacific America. His Wicked Theory Naked Practice is forthcoming, and his co-edited anthology with Bill Mullen, Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political and Cultural Connections between African Americans and Asian Americans has just been published by Duke University Press. Fred Ho’s numerous awards include five Rockefeller Foundation grants, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the 1988 Duke Ellington Distinguished Artist Lifetime Achievement Award from the Black Musicians Conference, and the 1987 Harvard University Peter Ivers Visiting Artist award.
PEGGY MYO-YOUNG CHOY (choreographer and director of the Fred Ho residency) re-envisions what it is to be an Asian woman in the 21st century, defying limits with her innovative choreography and futuristic performance vision. She has choreographed and produced three full-evening works with live music by Fred Ho. Her most recent full-evening dance-theater work was “Gateless Gate: Women of the Scarred Earth” (2007), part of Choy’s Women of the Scarred Earth Performance and Outreach Project. This project also included the concert “Age of Fire: Women of the Scarred Earth” and the multidisciplinary performance touring company Rising Tide: Women of the Scarred Earth.
Choy has also worked collaboratively with avant-garde Indonesian playwright Putu Wijaya, poet/playwright Genny Lim, poet Kalamu ya Salaam, and composer/musician Roscoe Mitchell, and has performed with Son Ock Lee's Zen Dance Company. In 1994, Peggy Choy was awarded the Woman of Achievement award for her work as an artist and activist by the Wisconsin Minority Women's Network, and in 1995 she was featured as feminist choreographer in Ms. Magazine. She has published several articles and produced and directed four arts festivals. She founded the Pacific and Asian Women's Alliance in 1987 and The Ki Project in 2001, an organization dedicated to creative thinking and intercultural performance for future generations. She received her MFA in Dance (Performance and Choreography) from the UW-Milwaukee in 2006.
WES BROWN (bass) has performed and toured with a wide range of musical personalities. Wes plays acoustic and electric bass, keyboard, percussion, and African flute. His current interests include African American/jazz, Afro-pop/worldbeat, reggae, and traditional African styles. Wes has appeared on over two dozen records with various artists and has extensive international touring experience with such artists as Earl "Fatha" Hines and Anthony Braxton.
ROYAL HARTIGAN (multiple percussion) is fluent in many world music and drumming traditions, including South Indian, Javanese, Native American, West African, Caribbean steel band, south Filipino kulingtang, and African American schools. He has a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology and World Music from Wesleyan University. He has been on the faculty of The New School for Social Research in New York City. He has performed with artists including Max Roach, Eddie Blackwell, Juba, and Talking Drums.
ART HIRAHARA (keyboards) is a pianist/composer living in Brooklyn. He studied music at Oberlin Conservatory and California Institute of the Arts. Art has performed around the world at venues in the Middle East, South Asia, China, Japan, Europe, as well as the U.S. He has worked with noted musicians including Vincent Herring, Akira Tana, Rufus Reid, Wadada Leo Smith, royal hartigan, Scott Amendola, Hafez Modirzadeh, and the Asian American Orchestra. Art self-released a CD in 2000 and performed with his sextet at the Monterey Jazz Festival. He has also composed music for theater and independent film.
A master tenor saxophonist, multi-reedsman, composer, and jazz educator, SALIM WASHINGTON (tenor saxophone) is one of the fastest rising stars on the New York jazz scene today. He has played with the Worlds Experience Orchestra, Sun Ra’s Source of Life Arkestral Revelation (SOLAR), the Sun Messengers, and Billy Skinner Double Jazz Quartet, before forming the Roxbury Blues Aesthetic and more recently the Harlem Arts Ensemble. Washington holds a Ph.D. from Harvard in jazz history, and has taught all over the world, from the Detroit prisons to the Bill Evans conservatory in Paris.
Brooklyn born composer-saxophonist BOBBY ZANKEL (alto saxophone) first began attracting national attention in the early 70s for his work with Cecil Taylor's large ensemble, and for his presence on the early "loft scene," performing with William Parker, Ray Anderson, and Sunny Murray. He has recorded with such diverse artists as Johnny Coles, Marilyn Crispell, Uri Caine, Tyrone Brown, Ralph Peterson Jr., Odean Pope, Gary Thomas, Samrai Celestial, and John Blake. Zankel’s award winning compositions are characterized by a stunning blend of rhythmic layers, a highly personal complex chromatic harmonic language, and a hauntingly beautiful melodic lyricism. He has recorded seven CDs as a leader.
DAVID FURUMOTO (vocal and percussion, “Tribunal”) has written, directed, and acted in theaters across the country including East West Players, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Huntington Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Alliance Theatre, San Fransisco Mime Troupe, Honolulu Theatre for Youth, Seattle Children's Theatre and The Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis. Mr. Furumoto holds an M.F.A and B.A. from the University of Hawaii specializing in Asian theatre acting, is a Master Teacher of Kabuki and Kyogen Theatre, and has professional certification in Japanese classical dance. Mr. Furumoto is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.