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The project was born casually from an even more casual trip in Taiwan in August 2006. During the first week of the month spent in the Chiayi County, I did waste a great number of takes because everything is interesting, everything must be filmed, everything is terribly exotic; thus  the heart of the matter gets lost; in other words, for Taiwanese people and Asians in general, we are very exotic, and above all, we resemble each other, like drops of water.
During the second week, the idea of the symphony poured out from a river spring in the mountains, more precisely, at the margins of a little tea-field, where a woman was launching fertilizer in handfuls, with a beautiful wide gesture and a walk which reminds me of the nuclear catastrophe survivers at the beginning of Wim Wender's Der Stand der Dinge;  of course the scene didn't fit in at all, also because the natural soundtrack of the place was composed by cicadas, a very peculiar kind of, listenable only in the Alishan mountains; this sound reminded me of La Monte Young's Theatre Of Eternal Music (but also the Tuva singing).
Thus, the idea of the symphony, which perhaps doesn't fit in that much either, taking from the classic symphony only the style of the titles, and not the structure (8 movements intervalled by interludes, instead of 4 movements like in the  the eighteenth-nineteenth  century symphony).
A symphony of sounds and images which rises up from the mountains and flows down the paddy fields streams of water, to reach the Chinese sea, gathering landscape memories along its path, people's movements, songs and most of all, tracking the ineluctability of everything; the eternal typhoon cycle, approaching as Taiwaneses switch on ventilators and disappearing as soon as they switch them off; chickens, geese and pigs cooked, eaten, digested and evacuated; adults and children,  games and  work; city traffic, markets and hawkers, tv-zapping, puppets and flute lessons.

The film is part of the project ART AS ENVIRONMENT - A CULTURAL ACTION IN TROPIC OF CANCER 2006, promoted by a group of Taiwanese cultural operators and artists, led by the visual conceptual artist Wu Mali and supported by the Chiayi County Government; the aim of the project is the revaluation of a country wasted by a rough and chaotic urbanization, pushing artists to work in some little country villages of the County, thus interacting with villagers and educating them to the idea of art and life; fifteen Taiwanese artists and one Italian (just myself) have been working in ten communities creating sculptures, paintings, music and video, but most of all trying to involve country workers, native people, fishermen and villagers in the art-process.

CHIAYI SYMPHONY (2006/2007)
(1) Adagio
(2) First Interlude
(3) Allegro non troppo
(4) Andante
(5) Second Interlude
(6) Concertato
(7) Scherzo
(8) Third Interlude
(9) Fourth Interlude
(10) Agitato
(11) Rondò
(12) Fifth Interlude
(13) Finale

Subtitles: Italian / English

Dur.: 63’20”

Project, direction music and editing: Stefano Giannotti

Produced by Stefano Giannotti, in collaboration with the Chiayi County Government in Taiwan, and ART AS ENVIRONMENT - A CULTURAL ACTION IN TROPIC OF CANCER 2006

Interpreters:
the inhabitants of the following communities:

Laiji – Fengshan - Shizi - Hexing - Sanjiao - Ziyun – Dalun - Jia Dong Jiao - Tugou - Budai

Aboriginal narrator: Kao De-Sheng
Puppet master: Sie, Tian-Yi
Children of the Dalun community: Betty, Frank, Lili, John, Vian, Penny, Stamluy, Tiger
Woman in the paddy-field: Al-mei
Hakka singers: Sie Fa Shui , Luo Huan Bin
Musicians in the temple garden: Lyu Jian Jhong, Lyu Hai Liang, Lyu Jin Lu, Shen Li Shan, Shen Yi Chen
Fengshan singers: Liou Guei Bi, Wang Mei Huan, Gao Ciou Cin, Jhu Wan Pin, Lai Li Yu, Syu Ming Chao, Syu Ming Yue
Fishermen: Tsai Bin Chia, Tsai Chorng Chen
Other interpreters: Ueng Chyung Jen, Huang Yuan Jing, Zeng Siou Mi, Shen Rong Shou, Fang Yong Jing, Shen De Sheng, Tu Ciou Yue, Zeng Shu Fong, Tu Ling Jhih, Zeng De Sing

General coordinators: Lin Chun Yung, Lee Zhong Min

Co-curator: Chen Hungyi

Assistants: Lu Yan Kun, Chen Ming-Yu, Su Guan-Yin , Pan Yun Wei, Tsai Jeong Chyou, Tsai Ching Wen, Tseng Chang Sen, Jiang Kai Siang, Jiang Mu Cheng, Huang Siao-E, Jien Tien Shang

Art As Environment – A Cultural Action In Tropic Of Cancer, Taiwan 2006
Artistic director: Wu Mali
Producer: Wen-bang Tsen
and the Chiayi County Cultural Affairs Bureau Director-general: Sig. Yong-feng Zhong

Original format: miniDV Disponibile in: miniDV, Beta Sp PAL, DVD PAL

© Copyrights by Stefano Giannotti, All Rights Reserved