Archive for November, 2009

We has such a great session on Thursday, the first workshop for the Concerto for Beatboxer and Orchestra where we actually blended a group of beatboxers with a real orchestra – about 15 of them!

Anna Meredith (our composer) is flying, she’s been writing some exciting rhythmic and harmonic little pieces. Now she can start stringing them together into the final score (which has to be done by Xmas – no pressure then).

Highlight of the day was when the orchestral players beatboxed, just
by reading the notation! It really works STOKED.

Here’s some photos taken by Gemma Riggs.

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Our translator Simon meets us at the airport… I later took his Chinese name (Si Wen which means polite boy).

We went up to the top of the world’s second highest building (the one on the right where it disappears into the clouds!)

Roxorloops and I get ready for judging!

Bellatrix gets ‘in the zone’

We took a ferry over the river to the Pu Dong district where all the ridiculously big buildings are

Belgian beatbox stars Roxorloops and Karen after our ferry trip

ok food time… steamed dumplings

we ate SO MUCH

Lotus roots

They brought out so much, half of this was untouched. delicious tho!!

YUMMY!!!

Pigeon head

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I just got back from judging and performing at the first ever Chinese Beatbox Championships in Shanghai. The trip was incredible. We got treated with such respect by our hosts and our interpreters. We got fed like kings! and the Chinese way of life was extremely eye opening. So different.

The beatboxers were very disciplined. although beatboxing is quite new in China, they take it very seriously, learning complex routines from online videos.

The battle was intense, and really hard to to choose a winner, but my congratulations go out to Li Yang for becoming the first chinese champion!

http://news.xinmin.cn/rollnews/2009/11/12/2905635.html

Just a quick update between all the ridiculously large (and delicious!) meals – it’s been a non-stop munchfest!! We did a press conference today to launch the event, very exciting… check the news post above, with Google Translation below

Google Translate.

to shanghai…. amazing city, been taking pictures like a madman but got no USB cable so can’t post any for now… we’ve already had some amazing local cuisine including whole pigeon and stir fried eel…. however I’ve been awake for 29 hours so i’m about to SLEEP. laters

right.. I’m all packed, surely forgotten something! I’m about to set off at 10am, will land 11am tomorrow Chinese time which is 3am our time. Yikes. Then we’ve got a few days with a show in the middle – Bellatrix, Roxorloops and I are performing and judging at an international beatbox competition as part of Shanghai International Arts Festival. Can’t wait, mostly for the Shanghai food.

I’ll try to keep blogging and tweeting whenever possible, otherwise see you on the other side!!

Anyone who missed Hexstatic vs Shlomo’s AV Beatbox piece at the Big Chill, (closing the festival on the mainstage) has another chance to check it out on Saturday 7th Nov at Videocrash, live at KOKO, Camden, London.

More details here.

Here’s the finished logo for BOXED, designed by the lovely people at Bullet who I met on a boat in the Arctic about a year ago. Let me know what you think of it!

LOL. We’re now thinking of putting this in the show…. a security guard might come in mid-performance and shut the whole gig down due to complaints from next door!!!

Just to clarify, we weren’t calling the security guy a twat! It was part of a workshop exercise. Anyway we renamed it ‘arrogant cat’ after this incident

Yo

Spent the last two days workshopping the story i’ve created for our new show BOXED. Apparently my suggested ending of the gang all landing in the future with a gospel choir of aliens and doing a big Stevie Wonder finale requires a bit more work.

Today we have an experimental workshop with performance artist Stacy Makishi who apparently mashes with your head so I’m looking forward to that!!

What do you guys think of this as a potential logo? Designed by the brilliant guys at Bullet