Meridian Music: Composers in Performance presents Dohee Lee

Musician/dancer Dohee Lee will bring her dynamic voice to Meridian Gallery in a solo performance featuring music composed for her ongoing project entitled Mago. Mago is a multidisciplinary performance and installation piece that combines music, art installation, film/animation and dance/movement, and is inspired by Korean shamanic music and ritual, traditional mask dance and puppet arts, and mythology.

Dohee Lee (composer, vocalist, percussionist, dancer and performance artist)

Born on Jeju Island in South Korea, where shamanic tradition is very strong, Dohee Lee learned Korean dance, Korean percussion, and vocals in the tradition of Kyunggi-Do. Her art now focuses on fusing these traditional forms with contemporary elements. Each piece and performance blends Eastern and modern Western musical forms and contemporary dance languages into works that emphasize the ritualistic and healing aspects of music and dance. In 2004 Lee founded the Puri Project with the goal to present a fusion of dance, music, spoken word and visual art with audience participation.

Lee has presented her work at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, performed at Carnegie Hall with the Kronos Quartet, and collaborated with a wide range of performers including Shinichi Iova-Koga’s inkBoat, choreographers/dancers Sherwood Chen and Amara Tabor Smith, musicians Francis Wong, Jon Jang, Tatsu Aoki, Lawrence Ochs and Scott Amendola, Joan Jeanrenaud and Theresa Wong. She has also performed new work with Nanos Operetta, Yannis Adoniou’s KUNST-STOFF, the Kronos Quartet, ETHEL string quartet, the Degenerate Art Ensemble and choreographer/dancer Anna Halprin. www.doheelee.com

Kihnoua 2012 « Memory Select: Avant-jazz radio

Kihnoua 2012

Kihnoua — The Sybil’s Whisper (Metalanguage, 2012)

Larry Ochs is taking his Kihnoua trio back on the road. As usual, it’s the core lineup: Ochs (sax), Dohee Lee (vocals), and Scott Amendola (drums), plus one guest player. In this case, it’s bassist Trevor Dunn, taking the spot of Wilbert DeJoode, the Dutch bassist who’s the fourth member on the newly released album, The Sybil’s Whisper.

Ochs describes the music as having roots in both jazz/blues and in ancient musics from Korea and elsewhere. Both sides can be heard in Ochs’ sax playing, which sticks to free-jazz connotations with some “world”-music touches.

Dohee Lee’s vocals tend to be a defining element, though. Often, a piece’s mood seems to be outlined mostly by her and by Amendola’s drumming.

The Sybil’s Whisper opens calmly with the even-keeled “Flutter,” where Lee lets long tones drift in the air, with Ochs’ sax responding in a way that’s almost mimicking the human voice.

“Grip Bone,” by contrast, uses gruff and choppy sax above a torrent from Amendola and DeJoode, a spirited free-jazz attack. It ends furiously, with Lee growling out a nonsense monologue that flips between American and Eastern European “accents,” and Amendola creating a blur behind Ochs and DeJoode’s playing.

“Erase the Sky” is built around a steady tribal pulse by Amendola, with Lee barking out stern syllables and Ochs, now on tenor sax, soloing colorfully. DeJoode is featured for most of the track, playing spirited arco bass against the ensemble’s fast but restrained mood, or moving into clacking, percussive territory for a louder and harsher passage.

“in progress…” draws a lot from Asian influence. It’s the piece with the greatest amount of stillness, even during a loud but restrained drum solo that paves the way for some of Lee’s most traditional-sounding vocalizing. (By which I mean, she’s doing something close to the traditional chants of Japanese ritual. I have no idea if she’s consciously invoking any particular tradition, and in fact I doubt it.) Ochs re-enters on sopranino with bright, springlike phrases — sun through the clouds — and it all ends with Amendola splashing madly on cymbals while Lee’s vocals intensify but stay restrained.

The Kihnoua tour schedule is up on Larry Ochs’ web site (ochs.cc). Here it is in replica. All shows include Trevor Dunn except the first one.

• • Sat. March 17, Berkeley: Trinity Church (2362 Bancroft Way), 8:00 p.m.  Without Trevor Dunn.
  • Fri. March 23: Firehouse 12, New Haven, Conn.
  • Sun. March 25: The Windup Space, Baltimore
  • Mon. March 26: Roulette, Brooklyn
  • Wed. March 28: Kranzberg Arts Center, St. Louis
  • Thu. March 29: Krannert Art Museum, Chamgaign, Ill.
  • Fri. March 30: Detroit Institute of the Arts, Detroit

From the archives: Impressions of Kihnoua in 2010.