During its 2009 winter residency at RISD, the Silk
Road Project (SRP) collaborated with FirstWorks to
reach out to the greater Rhode Island community. RISD began its affiliation
with SRP in 2005 and recently hosted the fifth annual residency, which included
a workshop on campus for area high school students, a discussion with the
designers of the Silk Road Ensemble's new multimedia piece Layla
and Majnun,
and an exhibition of accompanying artwork. The new chamber arrangement
of a 1908 Azerbaijani opera - often likened to the Romeo and Juliet story
- made its US debut when cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble launched
their North American tour with a concert
at the Providence Performing Arts Center (PPAC) in March.
In January FirstWorks provided students from five local high schools with
Silk Road study guides linking music, art, history, geography and cultural
exchange related to the ancient trade route. Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble
musicians, theSilk Road Ensemble musicians, on campus in the days before the
premiere of the new production, brought the curriculum to life through an interactive
workshop at the RISD Auditorium. The workshop featured renowned mugham vocalist
Alim Qasimov - hailed as a National Treasure in his native Azerbaijan - who
later took center stage with his daughter Fargana at the PPAC performance of Layla
and Majnun.
After participating as a student in the 2008 Silk Road Project residency,
Henrik Søderstrøm
[RISD '08, Furniture Design] was selected from a national pool of candidates
to design the set for Layla and Majnun. As part of the 2009 residency he returned to RISD to discuss the inspiration behind his designs and gave a fascinating account of his experience collaborating across disciplines. Søderstrøm’s presentation included Silk Road Ensemble musicians performing excerpts from the opera, giving students a taste of the new production about to make its US debut.
Founded by Yo-Yo Ma in 1998, the Silk Road Project is an artistic and educational organization dedicated to promoting learning through the arts and exploring "the ebb and flow of ideas" along the ancient trade route connecting Europe and Asia. The partnership encourages RISD students, faculty and the larger community to explore cross-cultural artistic expression through workshops and performances centered on music, storytelling, visual art and other cultural traditions. Each year members of the Silk Road Ensemble (SRE), a collective of internationally renowned artists and musicians, visit RISD for a winter residency.
"When we enlarge our view of the world, we also deepen our understanding
of our own lives and culture," Ma says. "In Winter 2009 at RISD we
continued an ongoing investigation of two types of expressive media - music
and the visual arts. That each residency brings new opportunities for exploring
responsive collaborations across art forms speaks to the innovative, creative
relationship we have developed with the RISD community."
History of the SRP residency Since its inception in 2005, the partnership between RISD and the SRP has engaged students and faculty in numerous interdisciplinary studio collaborations. Twenty musicians participated in the first residency in April 2005, offering members of the RISD and local communities a series of performances and interactive workshops combining music, storytelling, art-making and demonstrations.
The winter 2006 residency included a diverse schedule of events on campus: a RISD Museum Family Day performance of a mixed-media piece developed by an SRE musician and a visiting calligraphy professor; a Chinese New Year Drum Circle led by SRE percussionists; a RISD course investigating mapping and the flow of ideas along the Silk Road; and the development and performance of a new repertory by SRE percussionists. Students in a class taught by Graphic Design Critic Ernesto Aparicio also proposed portable set designs for the SRE's international performances and presented these designs to the Silk Road Project Board of Trustees.
Members of the Silk Road Ensemble returned to RISD in 2007 for a program of events using color to bridge the languages of music and art. As they developed two new performance pieces, Indigo and Blue and White, musicians drew inspiration from Textiles and Ceramics studios exploring indigo dye and white and cobalt porcelain ware - materials and products characteristic of trade along the Silk Road. (Blue and White premiered at the Art Institute of Chicago later in the spring.) The residency culminated in a public screening of the 1926 animated silhouette film The Adventures of Prince Achmed, with a new score composed and performed live by the SRE.
The 2008 residency centered on Folktales in the Digital Age, an interdisciplinary course co-taught by Illustration Professor Judy Sue Goodwin-Sturges [RISD '66, Illustration] and English Department Lecturer Jenn Brandt. As students explored traditional folktales and storytelling across a variety of media, SRE storyteller Ben Haggarty and several musicians collaborated and exchanged ideas with students at many points over the course of the semester; the students and musicians reunited in May to present individual projects in a public performance. A larger group of ensemble members also presented a family concert at the RISD Auditorium in April.
RISD and the Silk Road Ensemble are looking forward to collaborating for a sixth time in 2010.
