LINKED VERSELINKED VERSE

Linked Verse brings together two renowned musicians—SHŌ master Ko Ishikawa and cellist Maya Beiser—in a visually immersive performance environment featuring live 3D stereoscopic video. The soloist will exchange musical passages while sounds and images recorded in Japan and the U.S. undergo an evolving interlinked transformation.

Linked Verse builds on tensions and accords between elements of Japanese and Western cultures, of ancient and contemporary eras, and of sensory modalities (visual and aural). Its structure is derived from the ancient Japanese poetic practice of "linked verse" (renga) in which two of more poets take turns adding interlocking linked to form a chain of unexpected associations. Here, though, the links are between 3D scenes captured on location in Tokyo, Kyoto, New York and the Bay Area in counterpoint to the music.