With music concerts, you have the performance on a stage and you have the audience on the other
side. And there is a kind of gap between the audience and the stage. The stage is higher than the
audience and then you see the performer. That’s a practice for many many many centuries. I always
wonder, „is this the best presentation?“
So, for me, I always wanted to experiment, especially in the early days, how I do open theatre
situations ‒ the audience would walk around in the whole space … Or I changed process between
the audience and the performers. I always tried to do that because sometimes, if you use a
traditional presentational format, certain expectations will happen. Like the audience, when they
walk into such an environment, they just put themselves back into a situation they are familiar with.
They can watch the Berlin Philharmonics playing Beethoven or watch Lady Gaga on a stage or
watch an experimental concert. If the physical set-up is the same, it very often limits the audience’s
response. So, for me, I think it is very important to all the artists, especially musicians, to think about,
„what is the subject matter? What is the best way to present your work?“ ‒ And be brave. If you
ought to have to break away that format, then you have to do it. There’s no solution … or there’s no
standard solution for all situations but I do feel it is very important to try to find a presentational
format that works with your personal piece.
The art experience I talk about is my outdoor concert. I think one of the reasons my outdoor
concert is different from how other people do outside concerts, for example, I always have four
different groups in the concert. And they have four completely different styles. I can start the concert
with a Cantonese opera ‒ a some 200 years old art form that no young people will listen to ‒ and
that is followed by a Canadian punk band. And then followed by jazz and it ends with Mozart. If
those young kids, they just want to come hear the Canadian punk band, but they are arrive too early,
they listen to Cantonese opera; the first time, like, physically because they may have heard it on the
radio or watched it on TV. But they have never a physical encounter with that art form ‒ and they are
fascinated. Very often when you go to see a concert, it’s one style throughout. If it’s classical music,
it is classical music all night. If it’s pop, it’s pop all night. Jazz? Jazz. You never have an unexpected
situation. For me, art is all about surprises.
For an audience, if they experience something unexpected, it can be a wonderful thing. Because,
especially city folks, they are so programmed. I mean, everything is on their schedule. They know:
Friday night, 8 o’clock, they will go to the cultural centre to listen to the New York Philharmonics,
Beethoven, Dvorzak ‒ they know all the music. They will get what they expected: the number one
orchestra, the number one symphony ‒ they know that’s not the fashion. And I will ask, „why bother?
Why do you still bother to go? Why can’t you have wonderful music 5 o’clock in the afternoon? Why
do you have to be so robotic, so mechanical when it comes to deal with arts?“
