Tuesday 23 August 2022, 8pm
Noriko Okaku / animation
Helen Papaioannou / music composition, production
In a mash-up of sinister folk-horror and fantastical mythical imagery, That Long Moonless Chase / その長い月のない追跡 is a surreal audio-visual performance based on two folkloric legends from Sheffield and Kyoto. The performance is a collaboration between animator Noriko Okaku (JP/UK) and composer/performer Helen Papaioannou (UK), in a mixed-media animation with baritone sax and electronics, including sound design from Başar Ünder (TR).
The work probes collective memory, historical events and key city sites from different perspectives based on two old folkoric texts. At the heart of the work are Sheffield’s Gabriel Hounds, a demonic corpse-hound procession, which has literary associations with the city’s cathedral and the Great Sheffield Flood of 1864, and a 400-year old water-weeping ginkgo tree at Honganji temple, which is said to have saved 18th century Kyoto city from a disastrous fire. The tree still stands today, while Sheffield’s River Don is still a force to be respected.
The exchange between the tales is mediated by the looping of the Japanese and English texts through online translations, warping the legends into a bizarre and spectacular new mythology. Listen out for the voice of Noriko Okaku narrating her own text, and folklore expert David Clarke, who narrates automatic translations of a text by 19th century journalist John Holland, depicting his experience of the Gabriel Hounds at Sheffield Cathedral.
Helen Papaioannouis aSheffield-based composer and performer. She loves to create maximal impact from modest means, often via slowly evolving patterns and drones, eking out intensity from repetitive rhythms and a reduced sound palette.
Helen has collaborated with a range of performers and ensembles and also performs solo as Kar Pouzi on baritone sax and electronics. Garlic Hug, her duo with Alessandro Altavilla, combines a playground of instruments and approaches to performance, from improvisations with found recordings, to wonky instrumental duos, to ritualistic coding psalms. Helen improvises and performs with various collaborators, and has played as one third of the bands Beauty Pageant and HOKKETT.
Noriko Okakuis a Japanese born UK-based artist.She completed the RCA Department of Animation at the Royal College of Art in 2005. Presenting multi-faceted views is a basic philosophy of creation which lies at the heart of Noriko’s collage-based practice, and expresses the awareness of different perspectives and that there are various aspects of an event. Her work incorporates not only animation, but also audio visual performance, installations and everyday products. Her work focuses on conversations that engender a relationship between ‘objects and observer’ to examine how the comprehension of self and the others can be enriched. Featured exhibitions include ‘VOCA Exhibition 2019’ (Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo) and ‘The Interpreter’ (Derby, UK, 2015). Noriko has participated in and been awarded prizes at numerous film festivals worldwide.
Graduate in Electroacoustic Composition, violinist Agathe Max, besides her collaborations with KURO, Mésange, Papivores… works on different projects including music and sound design for documentaries, animated movies, short movies, theater, contemporary dance and art exhibitions/sound installations. After training in classical music for 1O years, she graduated at the Bourgoin-Jallieu School of Music, France, in 1995. Later on, she was exposed to improvised music and to the experimental scene. Inspired by a world both enchanting and draped in darkness, she has developed a wide range of sound textures, unique and melodious, creating unconventional and magnetic musical pieces reflecting a personality in constant search of rareness in music.
“Agathe Max delivers a drone to keep the earth turning on its axis, with a keen and romantic sense of swing. Everything you need to have a good time” – Jonathan Kane.
Yoshino Shigihara is Japanese artist and composer, She draw pictures, make songs and play piano, synth and percussions.
Recent her project is call Yama Warashi.
She is doing first solo improvise set this time.
