CD – Tomoko Mukaiyama Foundation

The first performance of the installation-concert, La Mode, with music by Tomoko Mukaiyama and Yannis Kyriakides, dates back to 2016, on the occasion of the opening of the National Theatre in Taichung, Taiwan. The work was conceived as an auditory accompaniment to ten dancers. In evidence are the piano by Tomoko Mukaiyama, the rarefied electronics of Kyriakides and the scenography of the event. The effect is a fruitful collision of design and architecture. Central to the piece was also a collaboration with the Japanese architect Toyo Ito, to whom we owe the design of the structure, a hyper-contemporary building, at once complex and imaginative. Here is a space that asks us to question the very essence of performance art today. Here is an expressive genre that considers the environment in the same way as the art that takes place in it to be inseparable elements of a mutual composition. The key concept that inspired the theatrical space is that of the “cave of sound”, a place of action where a whole series of energies collide. A new version of the project was implemented on live-stream version for the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, the result of a recording made four years later in June 2020 during the first Covid-19 lockdown. Two aspects seem to coexist in the project, one more intimate, gentle, and meditative, which also reflects the insecurity and social alienation inherent in the system, another more aggressive, charged instead with consumerism. There is certainly no lack of rhythmic substance in the compositions presented, which returns in various forms, marrying well with more melodic sequences. These are presented in a sophisticated and pointillist way in the introductory track, “Catwalk”, and become more suspended and meditative in the following track “Nocturnal”, a composition whose references are elusive and proliferating. “Early Memory” is pure contemporary chamber music, where the role of the piano is quite distinct from the other sound elements. Similarly, in “Dress Code”, a composition of over thirteen minutes, it is still the piano that dominates against some ethereal vocal interventions. “Ito Rumba”, the final track, is certainly the most chaotic, noisy, and full of effects, with a larger integration of piano and electronics.

 

Tomoko Mukaiyama & Yannis Kyriakides – La Mode