Halifax Jazz Fest – Day 7 – Phin Performing Arts and Asia & NuGruv
Two of tonight’s seven Halifax Jazz
Festival shows include: Phin Performing Arts (and guests) presenting the
transdisciplinary (sound, movement and narrative) production, By the
Roadside; and Asia & NuGruv will be heating up the festival
tent with Lee Fields & The Expressions. (Don’t forget the free daytime
concerts from 12-5pm!)
Asia & NuGruv
African Nova
Music Association Award Winners, Asia & NuGruv have been energizing crowds for
nearly a decade. Arts East caught up with the group’s band leader and
bass player, Nathan
Symonds, and lead signer, Asia, via e-mail, in anticipation for tonight’s show.
How did you first get into music?
Asia: I started singing in my community
church, St Thomas Baptist Church, North Preston at the age of 8...The first
solo I sang in the youth choir was "Going Up Yonder".
Nathan Symonds: I have a musical family, so it's in
the blood!! :) My mom use to sing in church choirs, and a couple of my uncles
had a few bands. I was always attending my uncles’ band rehearsals and became
very attracted to the bass guitar. From there I started playing and jamming
with them eventually. I played in a couple bands, (RNB and gospel) before
myself and Asia started, Asia & NuGruv. The uncle whose band rehearsals I
use to attend, is now the lead guitar player for Asia & NuGruv!! :):)
When did
Asia & Nugruv first come together and start performing?
We got
together in 2004 and started performing in 2005, and have been performing ever
since.
What have
been some of highlights for the band so far?
The band has
had some great highlights, so far in our career. To name a few, we were featured
in a short film Believe It produced by Truce Films, which was shown at
the Atlantic Film Festival. The band was also a musical guest of the first
episode of the Candy Show which aired on APTN. Asia & NuGruv are multiple
African Nova Music Association Award Winners, and have built a strong fan base
over the years :).
How would you describe Asia & Nugruv's musical style?
How would you describe Asia & Nugruv's musical style?
High Energy
with a NuGruv!! :):):)
What will
audience members experience at your performance tonight?
They will
experience a band that has passion for what they do, and hope they will feel
the energy that will be created on stage.
Which acts
do you want to catch at this year's Halifax Jazz Fest?
Looking forward
to seeing Lee Fields and the WAILERS!! and of course our local performers.
Asia &
NuGruv and Lee Fields & The Expressions perform tonight (July 11, 8pm) at
the Halifax Jazz Festival Tent.
Phin Performing Arts presents By
the Roadside
Phin Performing Arts, a contemporary
dance company whose productions fuse with multiple forms of artistic
expression, was founded by spoken word artist/trans-disciplinary researcher Ardath Whynacht,
choreographer/dancer Lisa Phinney Langley, dance artist Sarah Rozee and visual
artist/ Dalhousie Arts Gallery curator Peter Dykhuis. Whynacht shares the many “languages” that Phin Performing Arts “speaks,” and how
tonight, “a poet, a drummer and a curator [will] walk into a bar,” along with
Ria Mae and STICKS!
How did the four of you come together to form Phin Performing Arts?
AW:
We have been collaborating with each other in various capacities for over a
decade, but after a tremendously successful show in 2009 we thought it was time
to formalize our collaborative relationships into a company that reflected our
values—and our commitment to relationship building and experimentation across
disciplines. We are, in some ways, a cast of unlikely collaborators—but that is
the fun part.
How would you describe Phin
Performing Arts' productions/mandate?
AW: We
love to experiment! At heart, we are rooted in contemporary dance and
under the artistic direction of Lisa Phinney-Langley, movement is
our first language... But we speak many and are learning to speak more. We are
currently working on an in-studio residency at the Dunn Theatre for a piece
that will be premiering for Live Art Dance in October. This piece blends
movement, storytelling and architecture in a piece that began originally with
the work of Edgar Allen Poe. The Jazzfest show is our chance to develop
creative relationships with nontraditional musicians and work more closely with
film and the visual image. Art should be fun, sometimes. We ‘feel’ a lot when
we are creating work, and audiences are participants in that (hopefully) they feel something,
too. Blending artistic disciplines can sometimes give us freedom to feel new or
different things about the art that we see.
What will audience members
experience at your performance of By the Roadside tonight?
AW: “A poet, a drummer and a curator walk into a
bar”... It sounds like the beginning of a joke, I suppose. As for what to
expect we don't really know! The show is very much an experimental,
spontaneous, performance installation. We are creating a live tribute to the
era of silent films and the first ‘talking pictures’ and exploring a little
known element of the Bonnie and Clyde story. As early as the late 1800s, silent
films featured live musical accompaniment and other sound effects in the
theatre. We were very much inspired by the celebrity aspects of the Bonnie and
Clyde story and how this contrasted with the sad reality of life during the
depression. We can say there will be live bodies, moving images and some awesome
musical accompaniment!
What styles of music will compliment
or be showcased in the performance?
AW: We
are so lucky to have Ria Mae and STICKS on board with us for this show. Ria Mae
is a singer/songwriter whose sound blends contemporary folk and pop. I've
always thought she had a 1920s timbre... and a bit of Johnny Cash attitude that
fits with the feel of the show. Her sound is hard to pin down- she won an ECMA
for best pop recording last year, but she collaborates regularly with folk
singer-songwriters, hip hop performers and is working on her second album with
rapper/producer Classified. STICKS is a performance drummer and DJ who will be
doing some percussive remixing, providing beats and improvising the score with
Ria, who will be singing and playing electric guitar. STICKS is really
versatile and has performed with Squid and Ashley MacIsaac and also performs
solo as a drummer and DJ. They are going to help us put a contemporary take on
the Bonnie and Clyde story—blending everything from their own original work to
some unexpected favourites.
AW:
I am just speaking for myself on this one—but I am a huge fan of A Tribe Called
Red and their show lit me up…in the best possible way. We adore the
Oore brothers. Both Cyndi Cain and Asia & Nu Gruv are always phenomenal.
I'm a big Doris Mason fan. I wanted to go on the Theodore Tugboat drumming boat
cruise but apparently that one's just for kids. Can't adults play drums on
small tugboats that wear hats? Seriously, though I am also really looking
forward to the Nuna Siku show with DJ Spooky and Kulavak. There's just so much
great music this time of year. The artistic direction for Jazzfest is bang on.
We're so happy to be involved this year.
Check out Phin Performing Arts’ By
the Roadside tonight (July 11, 8pm) at The Company House.
http://phin.ca
