DramaEtMusica 2025 Session
DramaEtMusica is an interdisciplinary performance series curated by composer and artist Chen Shuhe Yue, dedicated to experimental music theater, intermedia performance, and cross-genre artistic practices. In its 2025 edition, presented by the nonprofit Chaospace, an international Open Call attracted over 100 submissions. Two artists were selected through a juried process, and two guest ensembles were invited to join the May showcase. The program featured five collaboratively developed works spanning a range of formats—including an electronic live set, a participatory dance performance, an amplified-balloon and video projection piece, an intermedia theater work, and a sound-object-based physical theater performance—reflecting the series’ ongoing commitment to boundary-pushing interdisciplinary creation.
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photos by Freddie Zhu
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Wonggongchang Mega Explosive is an eight-part song cycle chronicling the deadliest man-made disaster in Chinese history. The titular event—a catastrophic explosion that occurred on May 30, 1626, during the late reign of the Tianqi Emperor—devastated the densely populated capital of Ming China, Beijing, reportedly killing around 20,000 people. Each part recounts an anecdotal event surrounding the deadly incident, serving a role comparable to that of a "soundtrack" to an anthological drama. Narratives are delivered through a contemporary lens, blending mundane found sounds, text-to-speech bots, and Y2K-influenced soundscapes. The sonic palette aims to evoke a sense of artificiality and detachment, underscoring modern senselessness and callousness toward global violence tragedies. This version is a condensed reworking of the original hour-long composition, which was written for a six-piece electroacoustic ensemble.
photos by Freddie Zhu
We Grow Together is a community-based ritual performance. Grounded fully in the idea that every person can be expressive through movement and music, we aim to create a playful space where the audience is invited to collaborate with us in creating our sonic and spatial environment. Additional instructions will be given at the start of the work.
photos by Freddie Zhu
photos by Freddie Zhu
Combining film, live video, electronic sound, a tam-tam feedback device, dynamic lighting, live digital gaming, and social media, the Theegma Duo transforms the DiMenna Center into a hallucinatory performance environment. Within this theatrical space, where do the sights rest? The intermedia composition, (<e>), casts the question back to the audience with the loudness of a lasting gaze.
Beneath skin lie different selves.
They are expected, categorized, defined, and bound.
They struggle, they resist, they escape.
They are ever-changing, shaped by different desires.
Which one is the real me? Or perhaps each of them is?
photos by Freddie Zhu