Sep
7
to Sep 14

‘Purge II’, performance-installation as part of Unbroken Gestures group exhibition

  • Art Space at The Concourse (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Purge (Research), April 2023, photograph of research process at Blue Mountains home. Image courtesy the artist.

ABOUT THE WORK 

There is something that we deeply hunger for when we live outside our own culture. We yearn to speak in our own tongue, and often push aside social etiquette when we do encounter someone who is conversant in it.  The most common transference of this ‘cultural hunger’ is by way of food.  It is this image that WeiZen attempts to convey and expand upon, in her enactment, through introspective and embodied ontological exploration.

Purge, September 2023, photograph of public performance at Grace Exhibition Space, Manhattan, as part of New York Live Art Tour 8, Immersive. Photo above by Beate Linne.

Purge II will be an open performance process which eventually takes on a participatory mode. This act of masticating a higher-than-normal quantity of food ingredients used in recipes from her home environment is akin to excavating her cultural memory body .  The materials employed are turmeric root, butterfly pea flowers, cooked glutinous black rice, blotting papers, dowels, glass bottles and jars.

When a simple symbolic action is formalised, and repeated (continuously) over a sufficient duration, it can subtly transform the atmosphere and image, shifting its meaning-making, re-framing it and the surrounding space into something else.  Accompanied by an altered consciousness in the performer, it affects the witnesses to the energetic changes, and a dynamic oscillation begins to take place. This phenomenon can facilitate the experience of deep emotions and insights, which are often ineffable, requiring the suspension of our usual assumptions regarding things.

Purge II

Art Space on The Concourse in Chatswood

Saturday 7 September 2024, 12-3pm

(best by public transport due to street festival)

Saturday 14 September 2024, 12-3pm

A Willoughby City Council curated exhibition, co-curated by Cassandra Hard Lawrie and Faye Chen.

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Aug
30
7:30 PM19:30

‘the subtle beings- emergence’ part of Hand Unmade

the subtle beings - emergence is an excerpt of a greater performance-installation journey which was first presented at Articulate project space in 2018. This is where WeiZen re-imagines a Rungus dance ritual from Kampung Minyak, Sabah in Malaysian Borneo.

In conversation with the Rungus ritual facilitator, Mary binti Mojihit and the village head of Kampung Minyak, Osewan bin Ayung, this section is an embodied and material response to the speculations about the source of the gestures, and conversations about the ritual’s intention. 

Ritual assistant: Oliver Damian. Live sampling and re-compositing of sound sources: Dahyo Lloyd. Material: pig skin embedded with synthetic horse hair made by Katja Handt.

“I am interested in the performance of ritual like experiences; of being possessed as a transformative experience for both of the performer and onlooker. Then there is the notion of possession as the filling in of, and the mediating of, many kind of absences. It makes me wonder about the kinds of qualitative states that may make possession possible: mental vulnerability, uncertainty of social identity, lack of access to deeper communion or devotional spaces, the thinning veil between life and death, unbelonging…”

Tickets:

https://events.humanitix.com/hand-unmade

More Information:

https://www.backstagemusic.com.au/hand-unmade

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EDGE White Bay: Pink Regenesis of the Curse by Ryuichi Fujimura + WeiZen Ho
Apr
6
to Apr 7

EDGE White Bay: Pink Regenesis of the Curse by Ryuichi Fujimura + WeiZen Ho

  • White Bay Power Station (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

12:30pm – 3:30pm Saturday 6 April has been cancelled

12:00pm – 3:00pm Sunday 7 April

Turbine Hall & Boiler House, Lower Floor, White Bay Power Station

Tickets not required

Pink Regenesis of the Curse is an open durational performance by Ryuichi Fujimura and WeiZen Ho. Informed by the belief in chirei from Ryuichi’s Japanese upbringing, and WeiZen’s SouthEast Asian practice in the ‘livingness’ and inter-relationship of all things, they explore place for the possible inhabitation of Spirit. Occupying time, yet compressing time from the perspective of the place as witness, they use their bodies as memory transmitters and invocation instruments.

This work responds intimately to the real and imagined memories embedded in the land, waterways, and architecture in the White Bay area. The performance takes place across the ground floor of White Bay Power Station, emerging out of the flow of people, as well as the nooks and crannies of the building.

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Amulet Body - Final Participatory Performance
Mar
23
3:00 PM15:00

Amulet Body - Final Participatory Performance

  • 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Adjacent to this formal participatory performance, Amulet Body, are weekly one-to-one street divination performance sessions held on 17, 24 Feb, 2, 9, 16, 23 Mar from 11.30am to 2.30pm. I encourage you to attend the final street divination and performance session; at least the last 30 minutes at 2pm, Thomas Street in Haymarket.

We will then segue into 4A Centre for Amulet Body to unfold. This performance-installation opens and ends the group exhibition Year of the Dragon curated by Con Gerakaris. Amulet Body deconstructs and reimagines systems of divination and sacred-word protection. The work synthesises material symbolism, the body and participatory choreographic methods to expand and loosen the imaginative space, thus creating a dynamistic environment. The machinations of divination is exposed, suggesting such rituals are not about certainty but rather exist as a system of techniques and randomisation, responding to physical and spiritual patterns in the world.

Ritual assistants Ryuichi Fujimura and Phillip Mills. Costume by Jennifer H Chua and Tania Castaing.

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SOFT CENTRE Unfurl II Late Night Program
Nov
25
8:00 PM20:00

SOFT CENTRE Unfurl II Late Night Program

  • Pleasures Playhouse (cnr of Dixon and Liverpool St) (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Artwork above by Henry Lai-Pyne

For Unfurl II Late Night Programme, SOFT CENTRE enters a long-abandoned Chinese cinema in Haymarket to present a late-night offering of unhinged theatrics and A/V mind melt.

Coursing with the distilled rage and sorrow of a decimated Los Angeles, i8i affiliate FITNESSS (USA) prompts pandemonium with their prosthetic electronics and strobic overload. Making their long-awaited hometown debut, Spider Gang producer, SOLSA, will also perform an eruptive live set that merges SoundCloud rap, tek and ‘trap metal’. Founder of QTBIPOC collective UMAMI, Stev Zar stages a narrative DJ set with roaming performers under the AN.IĆ moniker, and WeiZen Ho continues her Stories From the Body oeuvre with a participatory opening performance, fusing vocal-bodywork, hair whipping and mimicry of spirit possession. Finally, enfant terrible of Australia’s breakcore and witch house scenes - Horse MacGyver - unleashes a new A/V work, titled: An unhinged and ill-thought-out version of creative expression that combines audio and visual technologies in a manner that attempts to capture an audience’s attention for at least 40 minutes in an age completely dominated by 15 second samples of our collective neurosis.

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Oct
29
1:00 PM13:00

Performature : Performateur 4

  • 4a Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Part of 4a Centre for Contemporary Asian Art’s Art in the Heart of Haymarket event:

1:00pm-2:30pm
(Public space in Haymarket)

2:30pm-4:00pm
(Museum of Chinese in Australia)

4:00pm-7:00pm
(Public space in Haymarket)

Concept: 
Performature : Performateur (P:P) was conceived by WeiZen in 2019 as a research framework to reimagine the performative vocabulary in relation to personal embodied histories. Inviting a changing collective of artists, WeiZen's provocation is to investigate how imagery can shift performance-devising, its spatial and compositional boundaries, by asking what have we not attempted before? 

For Performature : Performateur 4 (P:P4) WeiZen is joined in a durational event by Oliver Damian, Emily Eather, Peter Farrar, Ryuichi Fujimura, Phillip Mills, Juliet Sato with guest 'bewilderers' including Sue Callanan, Lian Loke, Laura Altman, Margaret Roberts, Shota Matsumura and Alan Schacher.

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Evaporative Body, Multiplying Body - Week 2, Carriageworks Bay 20
Jun
30
to Jul 2

Evaporative Body, Multiplying Body - Week 2, Carriageworks Bay 20

The fifth Keir Choreographic Award (KCA), now in its fifth edition, is scheduled for 23 June—3 July 2022 in Melbourne, Sydney and online.

An innovative commissioning partnership between Dancehouse, The Keir Foundation and the Australia Council for the Arts, with presenting partner Carriageworks, the KCA is a prestigious biennial program showcasing new, choreographic short works by eight Australian artists.

Presenting work in June are: Alan Schacher & WeiZen Ho (NSW); Alice Will Caroline (VIC); Jenni Large (TAS); Joshua Pether (WA); Lucky Lartey (NSW); Raghav Handa (NSW); Rebecca Jensen (VIC); Tra Mi Dinh (VIC).

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Evaporative Body, Multiplying Body - Week 1, Melbourne Dancehouse Theatre
Jun
23
to Jun 25

Evaporative Body, Multiplying Body - Week 1, Melbourne Dancehouse Theatre

The fifth Keir Choreographic Award (KCA), now in its fifth edition, is scheduled for 23 June—3 July 2022 in Melbourne, Sydney and online.

An innovative commissioning partnership between Dancehouse, The Keir Foundation and the Australia Council for the Arts, with presenting partner Carriageworks, the KCA is a prestigious biennial program showcasing new, choreographic short works by eight Australian artists.

Presenting work in June are: Alan Schacher & WeiZen Ho (NSW); Alice Will Caroline (VIC); Jenni Large (TAS); Joshua Pether (WA); Lucky Lartey (NSW); Raghav Handa (NSW); Rebecca Jensen (VIC); Tra Mi Dinh (VIC).

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Memory Walks Invitation
Mar
1
to Aug 30

Memory Walks Invitation

  • The Blue Mountains, New South Wales (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

We invite you to share a favourite walking route in nature or town.  It can be just around a few local streets, a bushwalk, or perhaps a walk somewhere further away where you grew up or used to live. Somewhere that has meaning for you and that you are familiar with.  Everyone is welcome!

For more details please contact :

WeiZen Ho on 0416 038 897 or email  weiofzen@gmail.com

Alan Schacher on 0418 272601 or email  alanschacher@gmail.com

This is part of their 2022 Critical Path Research Residency titled What Persists.

For more information: https://criticalpath.org.au/programs/alan-schacher-weizen-ho/

Introducing

WeiZen Ho, Alan Schacher and Phillip Mar have initiated a community engagement and project that is very much grounded in the Blue Mountains, where they live. As part of their 2022 Critical Path Research Residency titled What Persists, they are inviting local residents to share a favourite walking route in nature or town.  It could be around a few local streets, a bushwalk, or perhaps a walk further away where they grew up or used to live. Somewhere that has meaning for them and has significance in their lives.  

Talking with people about the significance of this walk will be the beginning of investigations of place and public space, and how place can be engendered through community. Further discussions and working groups will focus on ways of devising a social choreography based on symbols that persist in the individual’s memory.

Memory walks will explore walking in the different ways that it activates body memories. In walking we may trace steps between the other places and times of our lives. These places and times might include exile or emigration or other kinds of journeys or transformations.  We aim to reveal what persists in remembrances of places and how they mesh with places and communities in the Blue Mountains. Walking will be our research method and development process, a way to get to know Blue Mountains people better and the journeys they have made.

We’d like to gather a small group willing to join in discussing, reminiscing, walking, and then making together a kind of ceremony or procession as a further act of collective place-making. This might include artefacts developed in a workshop process.

In parallel the team will be working in exchange with collaborators in Indonesia : 

Mella Jaarsma, a Dutch artist who has been resident in Indonesia since 1984 lives in Jogjakarta. 

Mira Asriningtyas, a curator & researcher, lives in the the mountainous district of Kaliurang, near Mt. Merapi volcano.  This is the sociocultural geography in which a similar callout research phase will take place.

Artists’ links:

WeiZen Ho : www.weizenho.com

Alan Schacher : https://alanschacher.net

Mella Jaarsma : www.mellajaarsma.com

Mira Asriningtyas : www.miraasriningtyas.com

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illuminations of created place
Jan
27
to Feb 12

illuminations of created place

  • Chatswood Concourse (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

illuminations of created place is WeiZen’s reinterpretation of landscape; where the actions of her body transform the 10m length of materials she has gleaned from walks that some residents from the Willoughby area have shared with her. The performance-installation is WeiZen’s attempt to embody the sense of place via the archive of the feet; walking around the local area of Willoughby, considering the history and significance of the sites she was visiting.

To be in place, is to connect to the diverse observations, memories and beliefs surrounding that created place. WeiZen engaged the local residents of Willoughby who shared their favourite tracks and places, and this has informed her final performance-installation that is made of, and for, the place of Willoughby. WeiZen believes that walking helps to activate the body memory and can elicit stories not just from the present, but can also serve as pathways to memories in other places. illuminations of created place as a performance-installation is also about the imagination of the beginning, the phenomenon of the first landscape. Her methodology insists on the devising process to be of and for place, where she is attempting to rekindle remembrances and shift our perceptions of time, beyond the accustomed chronometric manner.

27 Jan 645pm is the first of the three performance-installation sessions, outdoors @ Chatswood Concourse. There will be an undercover site nearby if it rains. More details: https://www.willoughby.nsw.gov.au/Events/illuminations-of-created-place

2nd performance session

Sat 29 Jan 130pm

3rd performance session

Sat 12 Feb 130pm

Contact for more information:

Cassandra Hard Lawrie

7777 7972

Cassandra.Hard-Lawrie@Willoughby.nsw.gov.au

illuminations of created place is part of the Willoughby City Council curated exhibition Parallel Wanderings 双 行 游.

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Memoria: voice, body, memory weekend workshop
Jul
20
to Jul 21

Memoria: voice, body, memory weekend workshop

  • Google Calendar ICS

Tracing memory through your vocal-body: this workshop idea is inspired by an ongoing search for approaches that can re-mobilise and re-gather spirit and intention in order to gradually integrate the split-off selves and memory, fragmented along the paths of dis-location, re-location and time.

We will begin each session with 5 Element Bodywork practice called Pancha Tanmantra, which offers techniques of cycling through different qualities of emotional energies with the vocal-body. We will experience together how huge emotions can arise and pass.

Once the vocal-body is prepared we will explore methods of working/accessing memory from different points in time, re-embodying it through voice and body.

This acts as a point of departure for creating and deepening images which i often use in performance creation processes.

Please bring sketch book and writing/drawing material. Please wear comfortable clothes and shoes (where you can grip and feel the ground), small towel, light snacks and water.

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Stories from the Body #1 performance programme
Jul
5
to Aug 24

Stories from the Body #1 performance programme

The hybrid archetype I am working with in Stories from the Body #1 is a re-imagined combination of puyong and pontianak from the Malaysia folk-lore.

Stories from the Body #1 was first performed in Indonesia during 2014 at Arts Island Festival in Klungkung (Bali), Kediri (East Java), Undisclosed Territory#8 Performance Art Festival in Solo and Bedog Arts Festival in Yogyakarta. This puyong-pontianak entity was then incorporated into one of the scenes for Palimpsest Performance #1 at Woodford Academy, The Blue Mountain's oldest surviving building. In 2016, SFTB #1 was re-embodied and adapted for a site near the ferry wharf of Ogijima Island, as part of Setouchi Triennale Art Festival in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan’s Setouchi Region.

Image: Stories from the Body #1 performed by WeiZen Ho, part of group exhibition with every breath curated by Rilka Oakley, Blue Mountains City Art Gallery. Photo: Silversalt photography.

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Speaking With Your Mouth Full
Mar
14
6:00 PM18:00
music, performing arts, sound art, performance installation

Speaking With Your Mouth Full

Curated by Alan Schacher and WeiZen Ho, Speaking With Your Mouth Full brings together performing artists and musicians who will lead a journey through the library, examining the book as device, language as a medium for conveying musicality, and reading as a choral communion. 

Featuring:
Jim Denley : wind instruments
Luiz Gabriel Gubeissi : double bass
WeiZen Ho : performer
Linda Luke : performer/ dancer
Phillippa Murphy-Haste : clarinets and viola
Alan Schacher : performer
Hirofumi Uchino (Defektro) : hand-made instruments and electronics

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Evaporative Body, Multiplying Body: Critical Path – UNSW Dance Research Residencies 2018
Jun
4
to Jun 10

Evaporative Body, Multiplying Body: Critical Path – UNSW Dance Research Residencies 2018

  • UNSW Creative Practices Lab (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Collaborating with artists Mike Leggett (experimental video & film) and Fausto Brusamolino (lighting design). Alan and WeiZen are interested to research ways in which the body can evaporate and multiply, change its very substance, transmute, relocate. Concepts like possession, ghosting, vibrational energy, reality and projection will be examined physically and by means of augmentation in light, projection and media. Mediums employed will include screen or other surfaces, reflections and fog or haze. The work refers to transitional boundaries between life and death. Between spirit and sci-fi, scepticism, faith and superstition.

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t h e s u b t l e b e i n g s @ Articulate project space
Mar
22
to Mar 25

t h e s u b t l e b e i n g s @ Articulate project space

WeiZen Ho's The Subtle Beings is a performance installation that is the result of her two years of travel in Asia to research and witness of rituals in Sabah (East Malaysia) and Hanoi, rituals that are connected to her own cultural heritage. 

The work uses hair, text, sound, text, sound circuitry, movement, vocals and video.

Her collaboraters are Katja Handt (costume designer), Iqbal Barkat (film artist), Vincent Tay (cinematographer), Binh Ta (cultural artist-guide in Hanoi), Damian Castaldi (sound circuitry, kinetic sound-to-body designer), Michael Touisuta (sound design collaborater + engineer).  The installation team includes volunteers Sarah Keighery, Bill Seeto, Louise Morgan, Alexandra Mitchell and Naomi Ullmann.

This project has been made possible by Australia Council's Arts Project grant for WeiZen to study and develop Performances, Interpreted & Reimagined of Asian Animistic & Shamanistic Rituals (2016-2018)

The installation-in-progress will be open for viewing from

Sunday, 11th-25th March 2018

11am-5pm

 @ Articulate project space

497 Parramatta Road, Leichardt

The performance sessions are :

Thur 22nd March 630pm - 8pm

Fri 23rd March 630pm-8pm

Sat 24th March 2pm-330pm

Sat 24th March 630pm-8pm followed by closing drinks

Sunday Forum 25th March 2pm (panel members TBC)

Please RSVP to weiofzen@gmail.com or 0416 038 897

 

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