Artist Detailed Info: Weizen Ho

WeiZen was born and grew up in Malacca Straits, West Malaysia and is of Straits-born Chinese parentage. A classically trained pianist who, in her mid twenties discovered an Eastern European style of singing in a community choir based in Manly. This led Wei Zen into Indian devotional and Qawali influenced singing. It also rekindled an interest in Chinese Opera which her grandfather introduced to her as a child.

After performing in world music bands and an Indonesian jazz fusion band, Garis in late 90s, Wei Zen co-founded a SEAsian electronica music and visual media projection group with a theatrical edge called TUFA in 1999. TUFA held their debut concert at The Studio, Sydney Opera House in Sept 1999 and went on to perform 97 concerts until early 2004. The group increasingly incorporated theatrical, dance and shadow lighting elements to the creative work. Other major performances included a two-day concert PHOENIX LOVE at The Studio again in 2002, The Government House, Carnivale Festivals, MusiCairns Festival, FEMALIA second album launch at Bangarra Dance Theatre, a three-day concert at the MardiGras Festival, Newtown Theatre which received an interview by ABC TV Asia-Pacific and a live concert for the ABC Radio National programme SOUND QUALITY by Tim Ritchie..

from: http://www.zonar.net/uberlingua/system/syd_mar29_08.htm blurb.
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Recently seen preparing for Research Development Residency at Casula Powerhouse for the month of November 2008. The Borrowed Language explores illiteracy in one's ancestral language due to migrational and/or post-colonial circumstances in the SouthEast Asian region. What is the journey of someone who ends up educated in a language of another culture and having very little, if any writing and reading skills in the language of "the heart", the one spoken in the intimacy of the home.

The project aims to employ sound/vocalisations, animation, live drawing within a performative theatrical setting. For the development of this project we will partly be drawing on the stories of people who come from SouthEast Asian backgrounds similar to the one described above, who are now living in Australia. If this sounds like you, please contact me.

The Borrowed Language facilitates the development of new work that is culturally sensitive to migration and colonisation issues in Asia. Additionally, the project represents an emerging “Asianatic” language of an artform that slips between music, theatre and visual arts. It aims to opens up a dialogue about how individuals personally feel when they are displaced in their local environment. It deals with the impacts on the individual due to the legacy of the post colonial, globalised, mass migration experience of recent generations.

WeiZen Ho is one of the core artist as she holds multiple roles: project initiator & director, co-writer, composer, lyricist, movement and musical performer in the work. The other core artists include Kobie (animator/visual performer) and Tammy Wong (visual installation artist/co-writer).

WEIZEN HO is Sydney-based vocalist, musician, composer and performer. She migrated from Malaysia, Malacca Straits in 1990. She began classical piano training at home at age 5 and has been performing and co-directing her own contemporary South East Asian-fusion work since 1999 in hybrid performances that include song, movement and visual elements in a theatrical/filmic setting. WeiZen is also the co-founder, musical director and composer of TUFA, a South-East Asian electronica music theatre group active from 1999 to 2004. TUFA became the initial experimental vehicle in which I integrated western classical musical technique with her own vocal style to develop a new and contemporary “Asianatic” language. TUFA also incorporated theatrical elements, dance, film and shadow-play. WeiZen’s vocal style is influenced by Bulgarian, Indian and Sufi devotional singing as well as Chinese Opera, which her grandfather introduced to her as a child. She is a composer and lyricist, combining keyboards and sampler with an original physicality developed through the practice of five-element martial arts movement and Shiatsu bodywork. WeiZen combines voices, interview material, instrumental improvisation, and sampled environmental sound textures within extended song structures to shape the themes around myth, gender, rituals, migration and other such-like human experiences. Selected music & movement theatre works: Junk Theory project, Sydney Festival 2007 & Adelaide Festival 2008: composer, sound artist, vocal and movement performer for Big hART production; Actor in Fragments of Hong Kong, ABC Radio National; Touch, Listen concerts in Beijing theatre venues; Kenangan at The Actors Studio in KL, Malaysia; 21 Levels of Grieving: for Boxing Day Tsunami in West Java; 2004 tour across Indonesia; Femalia 3-day performance at Mardi Gras Festival, Newtown Theatre; The Prophecy at Sound Mix, Government House; Launch of Femalia, Bangarra Dance Theatre, Phoenix Love 2-day performance at The Studio, SOH.

WeiZen Ho can also be found on:

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/weiofzen
Pool: http://www.pool.org.au/users/weiofzen

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