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The Dance of Ink and Music - Calligraphy and music

One of the star performers of the Nordic Chinese Culture Festival is calligraphist Zeng Laide. His performance is a unique combination of calligraphy and music. The performance entitled The Dance of Ink and Music is best described as a dialog between music and calligraphy that blurs the boundaries between different art forms. Zeng Laide perceives calligraphy as a dynamic contemporary art form, which carries a tradition spanning several millennia. Zeng Laide has studied calligraphy since 1980. Starting from 1999, he has taught at the Zeng Laide Arts Centre in Beijing. He has also held a professorship at the Academy of Chinese Painting in Beijing since 2004.

Zeng Laide is a world-renowned calligraphist, performance artist and thinker. He has conceived an innovative artistic act based on the interaction of the strokes of the brush and musical melodies, which he believes will help bring the Chinese art of calligraphy closer to the Western audiences, who often find it hard to capture the essential nature of this art form. Although many view calligraphy as a primordially ancient art form, this performance shows it to be alive and well in the contemporary world.

One of its leading ideas of the performance entitled The Dance of Ink and Music - Calligraphy and guqin music is the principle of the eight basic notes (do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si-do) and the eight basic elements of a Chinese character (dian-heng-pie-na-gou-tiao-zhe-ti), and the common language between these two. To Zeng, calligraphy is much more than just “black on white” - it is a unification of active ink (yang) and receiving paper (yin), a dynamic modern art form that carries a tradition of thousands of years.

Zeng Laide has studied calligraphy since 1980. Starting from 1999, he has taught at the Zeng Laide Arts Centre in Beijing. He has also held a professorship at the Academy of Chinese Painting in Beijing since 2004.

Li Xiangting is one of China's most acclaimed guqin performers who has spent decades fostering the country's new musical talents. The guqin is China's oldest string instrument. Its soul is delicate and subdued, and its lowest note matches the lowest note on the Western cello. The guqin was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2003.

Qiao Shan has graduated from Central Music Conservatory of China. She studied with the renowned guqin player and teacher Wang Di, who was a student of Chinese guqin master Guan Pingshu. Qiao Shan started her musical studies with pipa instrument, but since she had the opportunity to study with Wang she changed into guqin – the reason for this is that Qiao Shan had always liked singing, and Wang Di was spacialized in lyrical guqin music, which combines singing and music.”

Tampere: 2.9. 15.30 Museum Vapriikki
Eskilstuna: 8.9 17.00Eskilstuna Konstmuseum
Stockholm 9.9 14.00 Östasiatiska Museum
Oslo:6.9 Klo 19.00 Baerum Culture House