在柏林的最後兩天，本想去參觀Le Corbusier的Unité d’Habitation，但朋友嚷著要到 Esther Schipper 畫廊看的藝術演出，說那天是最後一場。沒有甚麼準備，也不知道要去看甚麼的表演，就這樣我跟 Ari Benjamin Meyers及 Ayumi Paul 合作的 〈Solo for Ayumi〉遇上。
Meyers 來自美國定居柏林的音樂家與作曲家。Paul 是出生於德國日本裔小提琴家，二人是多年朋友。Paul 經常寫信給 Meyers 訴說成長中、生活甚至是創作上的故事。她如何考入柏林漢斯·艾斯勒音樂學院；在柏林愛上一名男子，然後分開，七年後重遇對方已經結婚了；每次演出前都非常緊張，緊張至想暴烈地把身上華麗的演出服飾撕破；在西班牙禪修之旅遇上一對夫婦，後來對方成為她音樂旅途上的天使。
「Dear Ari, In 7th grade I almost stopped going to school entirely. I was mostly hanging out with friends…」
「Dear Ari, The first man I fell in love with after arriving Berlin his name Michael, a dance who had just defected from his ballet…」
Meyers 將這些其中的十二封信譜成樂曲， Paul 挑出十二件私人物件：小童鞋子、鎖匙、學生證、演出服飾等，跟樂曲配對並在畫廊中展出。期間 Paul 更會在現場親身演奏這十二段關於自己的樂章。我事前並不個知道演出的背景故事，走入畫廊中聽到動人的小提琴聲，就這樣被吸引去看展覽。Meyers 做了不少音樂及藝術跨界的項目，嘗試以不同的形式打破音樂的界限，讓觀眾能看到音樂的結構性，閱讀當中的故事。至於Paul 除了是傳統小提演奏外，也做過不少觀念性的創作，以音樂去展現「寬恕」、「光」及跟空間的故事。
本來只是二人的通信，Meyers用音樂把文字內容變成旋律故事。Ayumi 的個人故事也藉著她的現場表演，觸動前來參觀的公眾。〈Solo for Ayumi〉打破既有的概念，讓音樂走出演奏廳，從聽覺轉換到視覺而被看見了。Meyers 曾經說過他來自演奏廳、歌劇院，在藝術界白匣子中感到無比自由。限界被除，於是來自不同背景的觀眾，在視覺及聽覺上均被觸動著。
Solo for Ayumi installation view; “Golden Bracelet” (2017); “Calendar” (2017). © Ari Benjamin Meyers – Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of the artist and Esther Schipper, Berlin
In my very last two days in Berlin, my plan to visit Unité d’Habitation by Le Corbusier was disrupted by my friend’s strong urge to check out a performance at the Esther Schipper gallery, saying that was going to be the very last show. With no idea what to expect, I came across, unprepared, the collaborated performance of Ari Benjamin Meyers & Ayumi Paul – entitled Solo for Ayumi.
Meyers, the American musician and composer who resides in Berlin; Paul, the Japanese German violinist for many years — the two artists have been friends for many years. Throughout the years, Paul often communicated with Meyers the stories about her brought up, her life, and her creativity through letters.
“Dear Ari, In 7th grade I almost stopped going to school entirely. I was mostly hanging out with friends…”
“Dear Ari, The first man I fell in love with after arriving Berlin his name Michael, a dance who had just defected from his ballet…”
These are the stories of how she entered Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin, the stories of how she met her ex-lover realizing he has become a married man. She also shared the intense stage fright that almost prompted her to shred her glamorous stage costumes. Through her letters, she introduced to Meyers the couple she got to know in her meditation trip to Spain, who later became the guardian angels to her music.
Meyers composed music scores for 12 of these letters, while Paul selected 12 pieces of her personal possession, for instance, children shoes, key, student ID, stage costumes, and displayed them in the gallery along with the matching music scores. I had no idea about the format and background story of the exhibition, but simply got attracted by the beautiful sound of violin, the beautiful sound of Paul playing the music composed by Meyers in the venue. Meyers is keen on breaking through the boundary that restricts the possibility of music, he works on cross-discipline projects that allow the audience to understand the structure of a music piece and experience the story that constructs the backbone of the music. Apart from playing classical music with her violin, Paul also does conceptual works that explore the themes of forgiveness, light, and space.
Meyers reconstructed the contents written in Paul’s letter into stories told by melodies. On the other hand, Paul communicated her stories to the audience through live music performance. Solo for Ayumi is an experimental work that departed from the conventional venues like concert hall, and transformed hearing sensation to visual sensation. Meyers once said, “When you come from the concert hall or opera house, the white cube feels a lot like freedom.” When boundaries between different art forms are eliminated, audience of different background can experience artistic sensations with both their eyes and their ears.
