Curated by Bianco Li : voice, multi-instruments
performed with Zhuyang Liu : Guzheng（strings), synth
Corey Lyu : voice, percussions, movement
Doors 7.30 | performance 8pm | £8 cash on the door
Advance tickets from eventbrite
Story of Lao San Yang : An experimental collective of three Chinese independent artists Bianco Li, Corey Lyu and Zhuyang Liu, based in London. During their own art practices, the first musically encounter was a spark of mutual interests and similar cultural backgrounds. Bianco Li has her own practice in jazz, free improvisation and folk singing and was looking for collaboration with stage-based experimental performers. While Corey Lyu talks about his interest of Chinese Opera singing and does his own hand-made costumes. Zhuyang Liu is a Guzheng player / string instrumentalist, but sometimes you’ll find them bringing retooled instruments, electronics and fictions onto the stage like soap operas. The first performance ‘mountain ghost’ took place in March 2022, a trio of 30min impromptu performances in conversation through multiple eastern, modified Instruments, alternative vocal experiments, body language and noise.
Bianco
London and China based jazz and experimental vocalist, stage-based performer. First as a singer, since 2019 Bianco has performed at various jazz scenes around China and London. Later she took the concept of improvisation from jazz and applied it to her sound projects, mimicking instrumental sounds, and to a long term study of Asian folk songs. Her works focus on words, poetries, voice experimentation and theatre.
’ The voice itself is an instrument’.
Zhuyang Liu
London-based trans-media artist and composer, superimposes urban daily life and transgressive fictional narrative in kinetic installations, sound, and performances. As a Guzheng player, 21 strings and 16 steel-string Guzheng, Zhuyang was nourished by their teacher Zhou Xin, virtuoso of Guzheng Northern sect in National Orchestra of China Broadcasting Art Troupe. Playing in the Chinese Orchestra ensemble at a young age, working as film/ fashion sound director and DJ, has built Zhuyang’s strong passion for acoustic instruments, rebuilding of the sound machines and has keeping them active on the stage of improvisation with world musicians. Their confluent cultural background has created a provocative combination of ethnic insights and contemporary dialogue in both their works and vision. You can always find yourself sobered up by world-infused sound and deliriously poetic language while the fusion of chordophone with electronica grooves your brain. Zhuyang’s extreme playing of the reconstructed instruments immerses the viewers in a romantic playroom while discovering fictional narratives moving in parallel across the soundscapes. Features elements of world fusion, dub, drum & bass, ambient, tribal. Recent sets including: San Mei Gallery, London / SYSTEM, Shanghai / Matchstick Piehouse, London / Frappant e.V. gallery, Hamburg / Staffordshire St, London www.zhuyanger.com
Corey Lyu 吕博功
‘I am a London-based fledgling artist. My work ranges from painting and installation art to performing art and video art. My recent work explores the nuanced interactions between the body, the psyche, and social milieux. Outside my studio, I am a multifaceted performer. As a drag artist, I debuted in 2015 and achieved some fame in Melbourne, Australia. As a percussionist, I have been training since the tender age of two, and have performed on national television in China. As an amateur performer of Peking Opera, I specialize in female roles (dan) and have performed at some of the most prestigious events in the United Kingdom’.
