Matcha
MATCHA is an enlightening evening out at the Asian Art Museum. You can watch performances, create art inspired by works in the exhibition, take a gallery tour, meet and mingle over cocktails, and enjoy music spun by a live DJ. Admission is $10 and includes entry to Bali: Art, Ritual, Performance. All events are on Thursday evenings from 5:00 pm to 9:00 pm.
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Contemporary Chinese Art
April 21
Join us for a special night featuring five world-renowned Chinese artists, who will gather—for the first time in the U.S.—in a panel discussion with the public about Chinese art today, referring to original artworks on view especially for this event. Hang out with friends over cocktails and DJ music, enjoy a docent conversation, and try your hand at making art. Co-organized and sponsored by iCulture.
Join MATCHA for excerpts from Makrokosma Bali, a new work from composer Wayne Vitale in collaboration with Sekaa Gong Taruna Mekar—a renowned gamelan ensemble from Bali under the direction of I Made Arnawa—and US-based visual and set designers. The work combines new music for gamelan orchestra with projected video and still imagery, digital-audio soundscapes, and an integrated lighting and set design. Makrokosma Bali contrasts the cultural values and cosmology of Bali with those of Western origin, exploring a range of scales from macro (galaxies) to micro (a human cell). A panoply of video imagery—people, landscapes, cities, rice harvesting, offerings, temples, the forging of red-hot bronze gongs—will be projected onto multiple screens and surfaces, brought to life through the virtuosic playing of Sekaa Gong Taruna Mekar. The full production will premiere the following evening at the museum.
This project received the generous support of: The Creative Work Fund, a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund (supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation); The Center for Cultural Innovation, The East Bay Fund for Artists, a program of the East Bay Community Foundation; and individual donors.
Often regarded as one of the fastest guitarists of Indonesia, Balawan and his band, Batuan Ethnic Fusion, combines the traditional Balinese gamelan music with jazz fusion. Well-known for his ability to play a double-neck guitar, Balawan has developed an eight-fingered-touch technique, also known as touch-tapping. Balawan has released three albums and tours internationally.
Join us in a unique performance by this innovative, celebrated master of Balinese shadow puppetry (wayang kulit), who presents a collection of animal tales (tantri). Such tales, popular in Java and Bali for more than a millennium, are brought to life through Wija's new form of shadow puppetry (wayang tantri) for which he has created a set of characters based on the animals and human characters of the ancient Panchatantra tales.
