Paul D. Miller, a/k/a DJ Spooky, was kind enough to answer 6 Questions for our blog in advance of his show SEOUL COUNTERPOINT a co-production with CultureHub that comes to The Ellen Stewart Theatre April 11- April 13, 2014.
1. How did SEOUL COUNTERPOINT come about?
I'm really interested in the way countries recover from colonialism. In so many ways, there are some seriously interesting resonances with Korean culture and the way I think of "diaspora" - the Seoul Counterpoint project came about because of a lot of dialogs and good conversations on topics on everything ranging from urban planning (Korea has amazing design for urban contexts), architecture, and cloning, plastic surgrey, and film. Korea has some serious paradoxes in all those contexts.
2. How/When did you become interested in Korean culture/music?
I've been Dj'ing in Asia for the last 15 years, and I've worked with artists like Ryuichi Sakamoto, Talvin Singh, Karsh Kale, Vijay Iyer, Ai Weiwei, Yoko Ono, Dj Krush, Ken Ishii, Mariko Mori etc Some of my favorite Korean composers and artists are folks like Choi Sun Bae, an amazing Jazz composer, Drunken Tiger, Love X Stereo, and more experimental composers and artists like Isang Yun and of course, Nam Jun Paik have influenced my music and my art. So I guess, long story short, I've always had a deep interest in Asia.
3. How does the venue in which you are performing affect you?
All of my compositions reflect ideas about philosophy and intellectual engagement with issues that are not specifically about one place. That's what makes Seoul Counterpoint so different from my normal range of work. Electronic music is usually really broad. With this project, I wanted to totally revamp my normal process of composition.
4. What will the audience experience at SEOUL COUNTERPOINT?
A wild situation....
5. Who has inspired you?
My inspiration comes from so many sources. I worked with an interesting Korean composer named Woody Pak from MIT, John Hong and Jinhee Park who have a great book on the history of Korean architecture, and Daniel Tudor who has a great book called "Korea: The Impossible Country". For Korea, I look at ancient texts like Samguk Yusa, a collection of documents based on historical stories, myths and folktales from the 13th Century, on over to stuff like the Chun Bu Kyung, a compendium of symbols that are used as divination tools for shamans and for yoga! The rest comes from studies of data about open source material readily available about Korea because it has a tremendous amount of collected data about its populace. I tried to reflect that, plus the wild obsession Korea has about hip hop and other African American art forms like breakdancing into the mix.
6. What does working at La MaMa mean to you?
I deeply respect its history as a place for independent theater and art. I try as much as possible to support independent spaces in the arts. Hopefully this is the beginning of a long relationship!
La MaMa presents
Seoul Counterpoint
By DJ Spooky
created & performed by DJ Spooky
visuals & installation by Culturehub
April 11 – April 13, 2014
Friday – Sunday: 7:30pm
Tickets: $25 Adults; $20 Students/Seniors; ten tickets prices at $10 are available for each performance, in advance only via phone, web or box office. 10 @ $10 not available day of show.
The Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East 4th Street
(between Bowery and 2nd Avenue)
New York, NY 10003
For Tickets and Info: Click Here
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