CRS Presents Paradise Laboratory: Hell in Paradise
Li-Chin Li & Jeonghyeon Joo improvised duet

PARADISE LABORATORY is a playground for sonic and visual experimentation. Conceived of during the pandemic by the renowned Korean traditional multi-instrumentalist, curator, and scholar gamin, Paradise Laboratory provides musical artists with opportunities to rehearse, record, film, and perform with other musical, visual, and dance artists in an experimental, process-oriented, and artist-centered fashion.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Born in Taichung, Taiwan, Li-Chin Li is a Sheng soloist, composer, and performer. Majored in Chinese Music at the Tainan National University of the Arts, Li-Chin received solid training in traditional music education. After graduation, she worked for the most selective and prestige Orchestra, Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra as a Sheng performer. Li-chin soon figured a nine-to-five job doesn’t’ suit her for making her own music and performing. Li-chin is known for her ability to apply Sheng to various art forms and music genres. Through her work, she is committed to exploring musicians’ subjectivity and diversity of roles in the performing arts.

In October 2021, Li-Chin took part in a six-month residency program at the esteemed Cité internationale des arts in Paris. Handpicked by the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan, she seized this opportunity to collaborate with a diverse group of talented composers and musicians residing in France, culminating with her performance in the concert “Rencontre autour du Sheng à Paris” co-presented by the Italian Cultural Centre and Taiwan Cultiral Centre in Paris at the end of her residency there. The concert garnered praise from the French national radio program, “Journal de la Création,” making a significant impact on the exchange of contemporary music between Taiwan and France, as well as elevating Taiwan’s sheng music to an international stage.

Recently, she has been selected as a member of IRCAM concert de l’atelier d’improvisation, ManiFeste-2022, and she has been guested with Ensemble LINEA and Ensemble CAIRN in 2022. Last but not least, she is a grantee of Asian Culture Council in New York 2023.

https://lichinli.art/

Jeonghyeon Joo is an award-winning haegeum performer, composer, improviser, and researcher who is an ardent advocate for new and experimental music. Joo’s work explores the somatic, corporeal relationship between musical instrument and body, frequently collaborating with composers, performers, visual artists, choreographers, film directors, and dancers. Her recent projects have been supported by Arts Council Korea and Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture. She is currently pursuing a DMA at the California Institute of the Arts and is on faculty at the California Institute of the Arts and Seoul Institute of the Arts.

https://www.joowork.com

ABOUT THE PRESENTER

CRS (CENTER FOR REMEMBERING & SHARING) is a spiritual healing and art center founded in 2004 by the writer/lecturer/spiritual counselor Yasuko Kasaki and artist Christopher Pelham. Our mission is guided by A Course in Miracles (ACIM). ACIM says that recognizing that you and your brother are actually one is the only way to experience peace. The mission of CRS is to promote the awareness that limitless creativity lives within each of us. We train minds to recognize the light in themselves and others and provide them opportunities to share their inner vision through the healing and creative arts. Since its founding CRS has provided numerous residencies and performance and exhibition opportunities to artists from all over the world. Currently, CRS is a multi-year sponsor of M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians), a platform created to empower, elevate, normalize and give visibility to women, non-binary musicians and those of other historically underrepresented gender identities in intersection with race, sexuality, or ability across generations in the US and worldwide, through a radical model of mentorship and musical collaborative commissions.

https://crsny.org

CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents
Wednesdays at Noon Music Video Series Episode 28:
Paradise Laboratory with gamin & Jungwoon Kim 2

Improvised by
Jungwoon Kim — dance
gamin — piri


Video & Editing by
Christopher Pelham
https://chrispelham.com
@christopher_pelham

Filmed in the White Room at CRS, NYC
on February 6, 2022

Created in collaboration with musicians and dancers primarily of Asian and Middle-Eastern origin or descent, the WEDNESDAYS AT NOON music video series provides a playground for unusual collaborations and creative experimentation. The works featured include both composed/choreographed and improvised performances and take aim at the perceived boundary between traditional and contemporary.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Born and raised in South Korea, Jungwoong Kim has been a dancer, choreographer, media artist, arts educator and contact improvisation teacher for more than 20 years. He has extensive training in martial arts and Korean traditional dance and ritual, both of which strongly inform his artistic vision and aesthetic. He has done performances in contact improvisation and other dance styles with Katie Duck, Kurt Koegel, Hiekyoung Blanz, Kristie Simpson, Karen Nelson, Chris Aiken, Leah Stein, and Marion Ramirez, among others. As a resident artist at Philadelphia’s Asian Arts Initiative, he created and collaborated in a series of performance works dealing with catastrophic events and sudden human loss, including the 2014 Sewol Ferry disaster off the coast of South Korea. In connection with this body of work, in 2015 he was awarded a multi-year grant from The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage for SaltSoul, a multi-disciplinary, multi-site, durational performance project.

Jungwoong has taught improvisation and contact improvisation at numerous universities and independent workshops in the U.S., Europe, Japan and South Korea. For the fall 2021 semester he was a guest artist/choreographer at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster PA. He recently received a 2021 ART IS PHL award from the Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation for creation of Gather Together in Their Name, a public art project that speaks to the interruption of community memorial rituals in the time of COVID. Lately he has enjoyed working with Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater as the movement consultant for an uproariously physical interpretation of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, directed by Dmitry Krymov, which played to sold-out audiences and rave reviews in April/ May 2022. In June 2022 he was a featured artist in performances at the 25th anniversary celebration of Philadelphia Dance Projects.

https://www.aha-k-pro.org/

gamin is a distinguished NYC soloist who tours the world performing both traditional Korean music and cross-disciplinary collaborations. gamin plays piri (double reed Korean oboe), taepyeonso (double-reed horn), and saenghwang (mouth organ). She is a designated Yisuja, official holder of Important Intangible Cultural Asset No. 46 for Court and Royal Military music. Re-inventing new sonorities from ancient, somewhat restrictive, musical systems, gamin has received several cultural exchange program grants, including Artist-in-Residence (2014) at the Asian Cultural Council, and Ministry of Culture, Sports, Tourism of Republic of Korea (2012). gamin has collaborated in cross-cultural improvisation in NYC with world-acclaimed musician Jane Ira Bloom, Elliot Sharp, Ned Rothenberg, presenting premieres at Roulette Theater, New School, and Metropolitan Museum. gamin was featured artist at the Silkroad concert, Seoul, 2018, performing on-stage with Yo-Yo Ma. gamin, as soloist, has scheduled her Carnegie Hall debut with the Nangye Gugak Orchestra in coming year. She has been a curator for the Crossing Boundaries Concert Series, which she helped to conceive, at CRS since 2018.
https://gaminmusic.com
@gamin_ny

https://crsny.org
https://www.instagram.com/crsnyorg/

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CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents
Wednesdays at Noon Music Video Series Episode 27:
Paradise Laboratory with gamin & Jungwoon Kim 1

Improvised by
Jungwoon Kim — dance and voice
gamin — piri and saenghwang


Video Editing by
Christopher Pelham
https://chrispelham.com
@christopher_pelham

Filmed in the White Room at CRS, NYC
on February 6, 2022

Created in collaboration with musicians and dancers primarily of Asian and Middle-Eastern origin or descent, the WEDNESDAYS AT NOON music video series provides a playground for unusual collaborations and creative experimentation. The works featured include both composed/choreographed and improvised performances and take aim at the perceived boundary between traditional and contemporary.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Born and raised in South Korea, Jungwoong Kim has been a dancer, choreographer, media artist, arts educator and contact improvisation teacher for more than 20 years. He has extensive training in martial arts and Korean traditional dance and ritual, both of which strongly inform his artistic vision and aesthetic. He has done performances in contact improvisation and other dance styles with Katie Duck, Kurt Koegel, Hiekyoung Blanz, Kristie Simpson, Karen Nelson, Chris Aiken, Leah Stein, and Marion Ramirez, among others. As a resident artist at Philadelphia’s Asian Arts Initiative, he created and collaborated in a series of performance works dealing with catastrophic events and sudden human loss, including the 2014 Sewol Ferry disaster off the coast of South Korea. In connection with this body of work, in 2015 he was awarded a multi-year grant from The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage for SaltSoul, a multi-disciplinary, multi-site, durational performance project.

Jungwoong has taught improvisation and contact improvisation at numerous universities and independent workshops in the U.S., Europe, Japan and South Korea. For the fall 2021 semester he was a guest artist/choreographer at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster PA. He recently received a 2021 ART IS PHL award from the Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation for creation of Gather Together in Their Name, a public art project that speaks to the interruption of community memorial rituals in the time of COVID. Lately he has enjoyed working with Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater as the movement consultant for an uproariously physical interpretation of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, directed by Dmitry Krymov, which played to sold-out audiences and rave reviews in April/ May 2022. In June 2022 he was a featured artist in performances at the 25th anniversary celebration of Philadelphia Dance Projects.

https://www.aha-k-pro.org/

gamin is a distinguished NYC soloist who tours the world performing both traditional Korean music and cross-disciplinary collaborations. gamin plays piri (double reed Korean oboe), taepyeonso (double-reed horn), and saenghwang (mouth organ). She is a designated Yisuja, official holder of Important Intangible Cultural Asset No. 46 for Court and Royal Military music. Re-inventing new sonorities from ancient, somewhat restrictive, musical systems, gamin has received several cultural exchange program grants, including Artist-in-Residence (2014) at the Asian Cultural Council, and Ministry of Culture, Sports, Tourism of Republic of Korea (2012). gamin has collaborated in cross-cultural improvisation in NYC with world-acclaimed musician Jane Ira Bloom, Elliot Sharp, Ned Rothenberg, presenting premieres at Roulette Theater, New School, and Metropolitan Museum. gamin was featured artist at the Silkroad concert, Seoul, 2018, performing on-stage with Yo-Yo Ma. gamin, as soloist, has scheduled her Carnegie Hall debut with the Nangye Gugak Orchestra in coming year. She has been a curator for the Crossing Boundaries Concert Series, which she helped to conceive, at CRS since 2018.
https://gaminmusic.com
@gamin_ny

https://crsny.org
https://www.instagram.com/crsnyorg/

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CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents
Wednesdays at Noon Music Video Series Episode 26:
Bolero

Filmed live at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Nov 4, 2021
https://gsmse.kaist.ac.kr/boards/view/board_notice/12955

"Bolero" composed by Maurice Ravel and Hyo Jee Kang 강효지

Flute by Min-Kyung Cha
Oboe by So-Yeon Kim
Bassoon by Young-Jin Choi
Piri, Taepyeongso by Gamin
Vocal by Kyung-Won Paik
Organ by Gun-Base Jeon
Cello by Hyung-Ji Lee
Piano, Virtual Instrument, Tambourine by Hyo Jee Kang

Editing by Jinok Cho
https://www.facebook.com/jinok.cho

Produced by Hyo Jee Kang
@mag_hyojee

Created in collaboration with musicians and dancers primarily of Asian and Middle-Eastern origin or descent, the WEDNESDAYS AT NOON music video series provides a playground for unusual collaborations and creative experimentation. The works featured include both composed/choreographed and improvised performances and take aim at the perceived boundary between traditional and contemporary.

https://crsny.org
https://www.instagram.com/crsnyorg/

ABOUT ARTIST HYO JEE KANG

Hyo Jee Kang is a concert pianist who has also been focusing on transformation between media and objects to create a new art form. She works with media artists and live electronic performers presenting improvisation and recomposed composition as well as her originals. Her activity as a composer, performer, creator and improviser has been featured throughout the world in Germany, Spain, Italy, Korea, Japan, USA, Israel, and so on. Hyo Jee currently resides in South Korea and serves as a faculty at Korea National University of Transportation. In May 2018, she gave her solo performance with great success at Lincoln Center, including the Conceptual Transformation Performance “Pyung Yang.” In August 2018 she was one of 12 artists from around the world selected to participate in Seminar in Taipei, a platform for in-depth exchange in both theoretical and practical fields, at the 2018 Taipei Arts Festival X in Taiwan. Seminar in Taipei is an initiative of Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council, in partnership with the National Culture and Arts Foundation of Taiwan, Korea Arts Management Service, the National Arts Council of Singapore, and the Arts and Theatre Institute of the Czech Republic, realised in collaboration with the Taipei Arts Festival. Her live performance works were presented by CRS at CRS in 2018 and 2019.
http://www.hyojeekang.com
https://youtube.com/hyojeekang

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CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents
Wednesdays at Noon 25: Oud Taksim Huzzam by Tomchess

Music by Tomchess
https://tomchess.bandcamp.com
@birdoffire7

Video & Editing by
Christopher Pelham
https://chrispelham.com
@christopher_pelham

From Crossing Boundaries Concert Series Vol. 14: Rumi's Wedding Night
Filmed at CRS in NYC
Premiered Dec 17, 2020
https://crsny.org
https://www.instagram.com/crsnyorg/

Created in collaboration with musicians and dancers primarily of Asian and Middle-Eastern origin or descent, the WEDNESDAYS AT NOON music video series provides a playground for unusual collaborations and creative experimentation. The works featured include both composed/choreographed and improvised performances and take aim at the perceived boundary between traditional and contemporary.

Tomchess (oud, ney, morsing) is a Pittsburgh–based multi-instrumentalist, improviser, and composer who has played and recorded with some of the most esteemed players in the improvisational scene (Dewey Redman, Butch Morris, Pharoah Sanders, Drew Gress, Ronald Shannon Jackson) as well as Moroccan sintarist Hassan Hakmoun. He has performed around the world and at New York City venues like Lincoln Center, the Turkish and Pakistani embassies, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the United Nations He has played on Grammy-nominated recordings and was awarded grants from the Turkish American Society and the Maryland Council for the Arts. In 2012 he was nominated for an Independent Music Award.

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CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents
Wednesdays at Noon Music Video Series Episode 24:
Paradise Laboratory 5 Part 3

Improvised by
Galen Passen — sitar
gamin — piri and saenghwang

Text by
Mia Chung
https://newdramatists.org/mia-chung

Spoken Word by
Elya Osmanova
https://www.elyaos.com
@elyaos

Video & Editing by
Christopher Pelham
https://chrispelham.com
@christopher_pelham

Filmed in the White Room at CRS, NYC
on December 6, 2021

Created in collaboration with musicians and dancers primarily of Asian and Middle-Eastern origin or descent, the WEDNESDAYS AT NOON music video series provides a playground for unusual collaborations and creative experimentation. The works featured include both composed/choreographed and improvised performances and take aim at the perceived boundary between traditional and contemporary.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Galen Passen is a sitarist, composer, and visual artist based in Brooklyn, NYC. His devotion to training within the traditional formats of hindustani music have provided him with respect and love for the ever unfolding wisdom of sound while his diverse experiences across countries, genres, people and vocations have given him the conviction that art is to serve a greater purpose of spirituality and justice. Besides hindustani music he performs experimental compositions, collaborations with dance and other creative formats. He has had the privilege to work with the Pittsburgh Opera and Brooklyn Raga Massive and was awarded an Individual Artist Grant from The Saratoga Arts Council which he used to conceive and launch Folk Song, an emergent ensemble inspired by the forms of hindustani and Irish Trad.
@galenpassen

gamin is a distinguished NYC soloist who tours the world performing both traditional Korean music and cross-disciplinary collaborations. gamin plays piri (double reed Korean oboe), taepyeonso (double-reed horn), and saenghwang (mouth organ). She is a designated Yisuja, official holder of Important Intangible Cultural Asset No. 46 for Court and Royal Military music. Re-inventing new sonorities from ancient, somewhat restrictive, musical systems, gamin has received several cultural exchange program grants, including Artist-in-Residence (2014) at the Asian Cultural Council, and Ministry of Culture, Sports, Tourism of Republic of Korea (2012). gamin has collaborated in cross-cultural improvisation in NYC with world-acclaimed musician Jane Ira Bloom, Elliot Sharp, Ned Rothenberg, presenting premieres at Roulette Theater, New School, and Metropolitan Museum. gamin was featured artist at the Silkroad concert, Seoul, 2018, performing on-stage with Yo-Yo Ma. gamin, as soloist, has scheduled her Carnegie Hall debut with the Nangye Gugak Orchestra in coming year. She has been a curator for the Crossing Boundaries Concert Series, which she helped to conceive, at CRS since 2018.
https://gaminmusic.com
@gamin_ny

https://crsny.org
https://www.instagram.com/crsnyorg/

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CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents
Wednesdays at Noon Music Video Series Episode 23:
This Is Not Me 이것은 내가 아니다

Direction, Cinematography & Editing by Chul-nyung Heo 허철녕
@mediaspora

Piano & Voiceover by Hyo Jee Kang 강효지
@mag_hyojee

Music: "Jeju" by Hyo Jee Kang

Cast:
Hyo Jee Kang
Seo-Rin Kim
Seoa Kim
Gab-Soon Lee

Created with support from Arts Council Korea

"This Is Not Me" is filmmaker Chul-nyung Heo's re-interpretation of an original work, also titled "This Is Not Me," by the pianist and conceptual transformation artist Hyo Jee Kang. It is a metamorphosis of a metamorphosis. The film premiered at the Sejong Cultural Center in S. Korea on February 10, 2021.

Created in collaboration with musicians and dancers primarily of Asian and Middle-Eastern origin or descent, the WEDNESDAYS AT NOON music video series provides a playground for unusual collaborations and creative experimentation. The works featured include both composed/choreographed and improvised performances and take aim at the perceived boundary between traditional and contemporary.

https://crsny.org
https://www.instagram.com/crsnyorg/

ABOUT FILMMAKER CHUL-NYUNG HEO

Born in 1986 in Seoul, South Korea, Heo studied Broadcasting and Documentary filmmaking at the Korea National University of Arts. His first feature documentary, Remanent People, which delicately portrayed the desire of a family in the midst of redevelopment project in Seoul, was officially invited in the DMZ International Documentary Festival and Seoul Independent Film Festival in 2012.
https://vimeo.com/mediaspora

ABOUT ARTIST HYO JEE KANG

Hyo Jee Kang is a concert pianist who has also been focusing on transformation between media and objects to create a new art form. She works with media artists and live electronic performers presenting improvisation and recomposed composition as well as her originals. Her activity as a composer, performer, creator and improviser has been featured throughout the world in Germany, Spain, Italy, Korea, Japan, USA, Israel, and so on. Hyo Jee currently resides in South Korea and serves as a faculty at Korea National University of Transportation. In May 2018, she gave her solo performance with great success at Lincoln Center, including the Conceptual Transformation Performance “Pyung Yang.” In August 2018 she was one of 12 artists from around the world selected to participate in Seminar in Taipei, a platform for in-depth exchange in both theoretical and practical fields, at the 2018 Taipei Arts Festival X in Taiwan. Seminar in Taipei is an initiative of Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council, in partnership with the National Culture and Arts Foundation of Taiwan, Korea Arts Management Service, the National Arts Council of Singapore, and the Arts and Theatre Institute of the Czech Republic, realised in collaboration with the Taipei Arts Festival. Her live performance works were presented by CRS at CRS in 2018 and 2019.
http://www.hyojeekang.com
https://youtube.com/hyojeekang

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CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents
Wednesdays at Noon Music Video Series Episode 22:
Sarve Kharaman (Graceful Cyprus)

Direction by Läle Sayoko

Vocal by Mina Omidi
https://minaomidi.com

Sufi dance by Läle Sayoko & Mina Khanal
@lalesayokonyc
@meera_whirling
@meerawhirling

Video & Editing by
Christopher Pelham
@christopher_pelham

From "Rumi's Wedding Night"
Filmed at CRS, NYC
Premiered on December 17, 2019

Created in collaboration with musicians and dancers primarily of Asian and Middle-Eastern origin or descent, the WEDNESDAYS AT NOON music video series provides a playground for unusual collaborations and creative experimentation. The works featured include both composed/choreographed and improvised performances and take aim at the perceived boundary between traditional and contemporary.

https://crsny.org
https://www.instagram.com/crsnyorg/

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CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents
Wednesdays at Noon Music Video Series Episode 21:
Paradise Laboratory 5 Part 2

Improvised by
Galen Passen — sitar
gamin — piri and saenghwang

Video & Editing by
Christopher Pelham
@christopher_pelham

Filmed in the White Room at CRS, NYC
on December 6, 2021

Created in collaboration with musicians and dancers primarily of Asian and Middle-Eastern origin or descent, the WEDNESDAYS AT NOON music video series provides a playground for unusual collaborations and creative experimentation. The works featured include both composed/choreographed and improvised performances and take aim at the perceived boundary between traditional and contemporary.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Galen Passen is a sitarist, composer, and visual artist based in Brooklyn, NYC. His devotion to training within the traditional formats of hindustani music have provided him with respect and love for the ever unfolding wisdom of sound while his diverse experiences across countries, genres, people and vocations have given him the conviction that art is to serve a greater purpose of spirituality and justice. Besides hindustani music he performs experimental compositions, collaborations with dance and other creative formats. He has had the privilege to work with the Pittsburgh Opera and Brooklyn Raga Massive and was awarded an Individual Artist Grant from The Saratoga Arts Council which he used to conceive and launch Folk Song, an emergent ensemble inspired by the forms of hindustani and Irish Trad.
https://www.instagram.com/galenpassen/

gamin is a distinguished NYC soloist who tours the world performing both traditional Korean music and cross-disciplinary collaborations. gamin plays piri (double reed Korean oboe), taepyeonso (double-reed horn), and saenghwang (mouth organ). She is a designated Yisuja, official holder of Important Intangible Cultural Asset No. 46 for Court and Royal Military music. Re-inventing new sonorities from ancient, somewhat restrictive, musical systems, gamin has received several cultural exchange program grants, including Artist-in-Residence (2014) at the Asian Cultural Council, and Ministry of Culture, Sports, Tourism of Republic of Korea (2012). gamin has collaborated in cross-cultural improvisation in NYC with world-acclaimed musician Jane Ira Bloom, Elliot Sharp, Ned Rothenberg, presenting premieres at Roulette Theater, New School, and Metropolitan Museum. gamin was featured artist at the Silkroad concert, Seoul, 2018, performing on-stage with Yo-Yo Ma. gamin, as soloist, has scheduled her Carnegie Hall debut with the Nangye Gugak Orchestra in coming year. She has been a curator for the Crossing Boundaries Concert Series, which she helped to conceive, at CRS since 2018.
https://gaminmusic.com
@gamin_ny

https://crsny.org
https://www.instagram.com/crsnyorg/

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