KAAREN FEHSENFELD (cultural studies) writes:
During our trip, we've seen and discussed several different forms of visual arts. But I have also always loved music, and I was really curious to see what the music scene was like in Shanghai.
According to Xhingyu, our guide, and Lonely Planet, Shanghai's music culture is generally lacking. So on Friday, when we went to a concert at Bandu, I was really excited. Bandu is a café/music shop/venue that is located right near BizArt, and we had eaten lunch there before.
We spent Friday visiting a couple different museums, and for dinner we returned to Bandu and watched a live performance of an instrument called a GuZheng. The instrument has several strings and sits on a stand, and is played from above.The performer attaches fake plastic fingernails to pluck the strings. A bar separates the strings into two sections, and while one set of strings is plucked, the other side is manipulated to change the pitch.
The performer we saw, Liu Le, had been playing for 15 years, starting at around age seven. It was amazing to see him play; you could really see his comfort level with the instrument and his technical abilities were phenomenal, all adding to a dramatic and dynamic performance. He played traditional songs, songs from the communist era, and contemporary songs.
In some of the contemporary songs he actually came off of the strings themselves and used the body of the instrument almost as a percussion instrument, which was really cool to see. Liu Le himself represented Shanghai's mixture of tradition and modernity. When I closed my eyes at the concert, I could romanticize a traditional, pastoral Chinese scene. When I opened my eyes, there was Liu Le, dressed in gold cowboy boots and a silver-studded T-shirt, surrounded by an audience of Westerners.
And speaking of contrast, after the traditional music at Bandu, we all went to a hip-hop club. We saw some live hip-hop that was pretty mediocre at first; the volume kept fluctuating and the rappers were kind of off. The music got a lot better as the night went on, though. Eventually, Xhingyu mentioned that one of the rappers who came on was Jin, and that he had the song "Learn Chinese" back in 2003. It was interesting to see a hip-hop aesthetic in Shanghai that I didn't know existed there, and cool to hear hip-hop in Chinese.
Shanghai does have a music scene after all, but it seems like the underground element of American shows isn't there. After all, there were uniformed security (and/or government) guards at the club, standing menacingly in front of the stage watching the crowd dance.
Kaaren Fehsenfeld is a junior cultural studies major.
