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The Indiana Daily Student

arts

IU Theatre Dept. partners with Venue

Chinese musician Seraphenix Huan Zhang plays the Qin, a seven-stringed traditional Chinese acoustic instrument at Venue, Fine Art and Gifts Tuesday evening. He is in the United States in association with the theatre department's production of "M Butterfly."

Vibrations filled the room as Huan Zhang’s fingers flew over the strings of his qin, a five- to six-foot-long stringed instrument.

A cluster of people filled the Venue, Fine Art and Gifts to listen to his performance Tuesday night.

The table swayed under the narrow, wooden mass as Zhang shook his fingers side to side, creating a warbling sound.

In partnership with the IU Department of Theatre, Drama and Contemporary Dance, the Venue housed the musician’s performance in one of the rooms tucked in the ?gallery.

His casual concert promoted IU Theatre’s upcoming performance “M. Butterfly.”

“M. Butterfly” opens Oct. 24 and will have performances into early November.

Tickets can be purchased on the theater department website and its box office.

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Amy Osajima, IU Theatre marketing director, said “M. Butterfly” is the department’s chance to link together various Chinese cultural entities around campus.

She said Zhang will return to Wells-Metz Theatre opening night to perform in a gallery within the theater’s walls. He will represent the Chinese Calligraphy Club.

“The gallery is a closed space,” she said.

Because the qin does not produce a loud volume, the semi-isolated room will protect his music from the background noise of the lobby.

The Chinese Calligraphy Club, the Venue, IU Art Museum, IU Theatre and Lotus Garden, a local Chinese restaurant, are coming together to represent all angles of Chinese culture to the IU community.

Gabriel Colman, owner and curator at the Venue, said this is not the first time the gallery has partnered with IU Theatre.

Over the summer, the Venue worked with the department to preview its production of “The Twelfth Night” for the Indiana Festival ?Theatre.

This is also not the first time the qin has been performed there.

The instrument was first introduced into the gallery’s monthly music performances two summers ago, he said.

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For Zhang, his music is not a means of entertainment for the ?audience.

It is his way of calming down and dedicating time to self-reflection.

“It’s not to show music to others,” he said. “It’s a way to look at myself.”

He said the qin could be used as a tool for people to look deep into themselves.

He first heard the instrument five years ago when his mother had just started learning to play it. She only needed to pluck one note, and he was hooked.

Zhang played a handful of songs, sprinkling background information about his instrument between performances.

The qin, pronounced “keen,” is a physical representation of the Earth, he said. It is built with wooden parts that represent mountains, atmosphere and ground.

When he plucks a string, which he ?described as the representation of a river, he said the sound literally comes up from the Earth and communicates to heaven.

“It’s not for performance,” he said. “It’s for self-meditation.”

Originally, Zhang said, qin music was used to communicate to the gods at a time in which people couldn’t speak against the government.

Many songs played Tuesday night, Zhang said, were created hundreds of years ago as people were grieving the lack of freedom of speech.

The qin is not a popular instrument today.

About 30 years ago, Zhang said the Chinese government sought to recover traditional Chinese culture.

When they counted the number of remaining qin players in the country, Zhang said less than 200 were found.

Despite this, traditional music can be considered one of the ?remaining ancient art forms that has lasted through the years, along with Chinese ?calligraphy.

Osajima said it is important for Asian cultures to be further represented on campus, especially since the largest proportion of international students on the IU campus are from China, according to an IU press ?release.

“We are building out a dimension of the play,” she said. “We’ve tried really hard to find legitimate, authentic representations of Chinese cultures in the things we add to the ?performance.”

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