rui fu
is a vocalist and composer specializing in improvisational and impressionistic interpretation of Chinese ethnic musical traditions and modernist portrayals of literati meditative and Wu shamanic musics. As a writer, devoted field researcher on minority cultures and translator of Chinese classics, she channels her knowledge and cultural sensibilities into creating and performing cross-cultural music and drama works that have been featured by Forbes, Vogue China, Whitewall Magazine, BBC Arabic, Chinese Central Television, among others. She is also a documentary photographer.
”Fu views the world with the same wonder she believes our ancestors once held, and she creates a musical space through which she can transport the memories of the past into visions for the future.”
Ritual: On the Road
is an ongoing music, dance and theater field experiment by Rui Fu and ethnic musicians from various traditions of faith. Rooted in the backbones of primeval Chinese shamanic rites, these ceremonies humbly aim to revive indigenous supplications to nature. Through multicultural collaborative processes, they become points of convergence for resonant spiritual perspectives embodied by the participating musicians.
The ensemble sources inspiration from unique site of performance by gathering local elemental materials in preparing the theatrical altar space, seeking cultural insights from surrounding communities, and improvising a music and movement communal journey guided by the archetypal framework of contemplative transformation.
Departing from the setup of classical "black box" theaters, these small intimate rituals aim to dissolve the hierarchy between the audience and the performer, peel back the veil of the traditional stage, and incorporate the breath and presence of the audience into the sensorial center of ancient invocations.
Music as Rite of Passage
Strongly influenced by the temporal, timbral and rhythmic flexibilities of ancient Chinese music, Rui collaborates with instrumentalists from minority tribes in musical experiments that explore the natural pace of one’s breath in relation to the gravitational tendencies of the body, and the melodic direction that arises as a result. She initiates conversations between indigenous musics and rare instruments, often employing her signature - non-lexical vocables as her own “language” and lyrics - to illustrate a crossing of cultural and religious barriers.
Selected Works
Improvisational music
is approached as a spontaneous anchoring space that reveals the unity of being of all participants involved. The intention is to shed egocentric desires to convey artistic concepts, and instead return to the original state of humble joy, from which creation is not limited by any party’s or genre’s terms, but follows a new order rising out of disinterested harmonization.
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