I have been doing fieldwork in Taipei for about two weeks. All things are still in progress.
Yesterday, after receiving a tip from an informant, I was able to attend what folks call ‘a mysterious concert’ performed by Vincent Moon and an ensemble of Taiwanese performers. I am still not quite sure which genre this concert fits into. I suppose it is something in between Jam and experimental music. Or should I say spiritual music?
The venue for Vincent’s performance was situated within one of the mountains surrounding and overlooking the Taipei basin. In the evening, I sat in the bus climbing up to the YangMing mountain, thinking about what to expect from this concert. To be honest, I thought of nothing apart from figuring out possible routes of getting home, if the concert goes over time. I had the feeling that this kind of concert always works in its own time, in its own world.
Following the instruction provided by the organiser, I managed to arrive at the door of a gallery, hidden at the end of a small alley with some littering scattering on the side. I could hear the unknown insects buzzing along the way. Oh well, I said to myself: I was really with nature.
The gallery was decorated in a rusty style. Earthy tones was found everywhere. The painting. The wall. The wooden furniture. The ceramic plates. The wooden floor covered with beige cushions. The dim lighting. The calm and comfortable milieu gave me a feeling that I was intruding someone’s home but at the same time knowing that I was not. Anyway, I gave my name to the host, a calm and friendly-looking woman who was trying to locate my name on the list of visitors. She said one of her staff has the same given name as me. OK. That was not very common.
After ordering a glass of Osmanthus sweet wine, I sat on the floor in the room, waiting for the performance. Not sure what to do. I certainly arrived early. I looked around and rested my eyes on the screen playing a video that only contained one scene of a moving object – I guessed it looked like a wheel – with lighting in the darkness. I started to observe the compositions of the audience as people began to arrive. They all looked very young – younger than me – on the average age of 25. They all dressed in more or less the same style – organic and baggy clothing in earthy tones. Or some other clothing that one would wear in yoga practices. Comfortable but quite tight around your body.
Then Vincent appeared. He spoke to his team for today’s performance in English. I realised that he was French. Obviously. How could I not realise! Well, he looked like someone who lived in Tibet for a while. That was his vibe. He wore a red-brick coloured skirt or skort with his ankles visible in my view. There was a scarf embroidered with ethnic patterns wrapped around his neck. I forgot its colour. Probably something bright. They had a rehearsal for a bit – to prepare for the second part of the Jam performance. All performers had a very calm appearance. And solemn. Like someone who attends a funeral for someone who you don’t know quite well but to show your respect. Or like someone who just came out of months of meditation in the mountains. Simply undisturbed.
Then came the music. It was a combination of a video collage about Vincent’s journey in Taiwan and an improvised selection of music by Vincent as a DJ. I found it difficult to describe this kind of music. It was not electronic. Not classic. But experimental. A mixture of religious and electronic elements with some dialogues spoken in Chinese, passages of songs sung in Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese. There were lights and rivers from the urban landscape piled up with other footage about a medium, a young girl singing and an Aboriginal man. I let myself go with the flow between music, video and the universe. I could feel his performance working at the level of the ‘heavenly heart’ as described in The Secret of the Golden Flower. The sound of the music dissolves your ego into all the worlds with ghosts, spirits and desires floating about and around. Otherworldly but simultaneously worldy. A coming-together of past and future at the moment of here and now.
The music stopped rather abruptly, leaving the audience in silence. Was it the end of the first performance? Yes, it was. Vincent went out to have some wine. I went to the loo. When I came back, I found Vincent back in the room and decided to ask him about his music.
“what did you want to summon with your music?”
He stared at me as if he did not get my question. And silence. I had no choice but to continue..
“was it a synchronicity? Was it an encounter with the spirits, the worlds, the events? What was it?
“its beyond words. People made their own meaning”
“Okay. Was it a transpersonal encounter?”
He laughed at my choice of wording and repeated it: “transpersonal encounter” with a little sparkle in his eyes. I supposed he thought that’s exactly the kind of fancy term used by people from academia. Then he mumbled something along the line that “ look, I had been through a lot in my life…“ and rushed to leave the room by cutting the sentence short, “I really had to go outside”
“Of course, you have another performance.” Said I. Now I felt really embarrassed about my questions.
He gave an apologetic smile and left. I looked at the name card that he slipped into my hand in the beginning of the conversation, right after I told him I was a UK-based researcher. It was written in French. I had it translated into English through my phone. It was about his ‘counselling’ service for all kinds of troubles. No offence but it gave me a bit of a scamming vibe. Especially when he said he can put a smile back on your face and solve all the problems you have in your life. Okay. I bet it is not cheap.
Then it came with the second part of the musical performance. It was a Jam performance. Again, there was a video that served as a cue for performers to guess when to turn in their performance in accordance with others. It was an improvised performance. Soon, as the music rolled out and filled the room, performers became part of the music; the music became part of them. The sounds went into my heavenly heart and made a little ripple there. They brought the world into my heart and placed my heart into the world. There was a boundary between the two; but it was porous for some kind of energies or spiritual exchange. So I didn’t lose myself in all this. I still had a few vague thoughts which I couldn’t remember what they were but my heart was made quiet as if it was surrounded by something larger than anything imaginable. But it was not trapped. The music indeed dissolved the boundary between the self and the world but I suppose it was up to oneself to decide what to do with the situation. It could go either way. To be haunted or liberated.
Not only towards the end of the performance did I realise that the sounds of the music might have the same yet varying effect on the performers. While some looked pretty much undistributed by staying close with their heavenly hearts, others looked as if they were lost in the liminal space. One of them looked into the eyes of the audience and implored: I want love.
Vincent wanted to go out again. He asked everyone to stay and go to the roof for some wine. I realised that was the moment for me to leave for I came there in the capacity as a researcher. I had made myself clear throughout.
