What is Spittunes?
Born from the Spittoon Arts Collective, Spittunes is a project that sets up a band or musical artist with a poet for collaboration on a special musical piece inspired by the poet’s poetry. We have an amazing line up, a vast array of musical styles that would suffice to be a brilliant gig alone, except that now the bands will play a special collaboration song in their sets that they have worked on together with their poets, complete with a small reading from each collaborating poet. This is a project that brings Beijing’s music and literary scenes together in a hugely compelling way and we’re very lucky to have the best talents to bring it to life.
What is it all about?
With a title inspired from a quote from the poem, Sacred Emily by Gertrude Stein – ‘a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose…’ – Art is a Poem is a Song seeks to explore the May exhibition at Another Art gallery in Shunyi, The Common of Difference, in a groundbreakingly novel and creative way. Poets will write poems inspired by the exhibit and then musicians will work with the poets to create a special song inspired by the art and the poetry. For the first time in Spittoon’s history, the dimension of visual art will be brought to the Spittunes (poetry and music collaboration) process.
The gallery
Another Art Gallery, situated next to Roma Lake in Shunyi.
Who are the poets and musicians and how will they be matched up?
Korey Livy and Zuo fei
Korey Ivy (musician)
Country Rock at its finest, this hard hitting, catchy and addictive new style that tips the rock end of modern country music will keep you coming back for more. Country music veteran and Australian Idol star Korey Livy is a songwriting connoisseur with the ability to capture the real life, raw emotion that he is known for in his songs. Korey’s ability to sing you a story and make you laugh, or cry is a real testament to his amazing life experiences and skill as a singer and songwriter.
Zuo Fei (poet)
A resident of Beijing and university English teacher runs a WeChat platform that introduces foreign poetry to Chinese readers. She writes poems and essays. In 2004 she started making poetry in English, but it was not until 2016 that she was actively involved in translation. She got an MA degree from Beijing Foreign Studies University in 2000.
Will be interpreting:
Nancy Jenkinson Brown and Deva Eveland
Nancy Jenkinson Brown (musician)
Since 2001, Nancy Jenkinson Brown has been working and studying with top names in many genres, the UK, Erope and Asia. From jazz starts – like Sheila Jordan, JZ festival 2017 guest Tina May, Michael Garrick, Jean Toissant, BBC jazz album award winners Brian Kellock and John Rae – to electronica and dance projects with musicians from Hed Kandi, Fenetik, Producer DJs like UK’s The Sidewinder and China’s Soulspeak. Blue Note Records (Trip series). She has also entered the computer games genre apprearing on Rockstar’s world famous phenomenon, Grand Theft Auto series.
Deva Eveland (writer)
Deva Eveland has work published or forthcoming in Puerto del Sol, Alternating Current, Shanghai Literary Review, New Dead Families, and Spittoon Literary Magazine. He has also collaborated with the historian Hieronymous Atchley on “Oft Neglected Wars,” a compendium of strange and forgotten military conflicts.
will be interpreting:
Mark Elshout and Simon Shieh
Mark Elshout (musician)
Mark is an Australian multi – instrumentalist (Brass and Woodwind). He is classically trained but has spent most of his year performing jazz and popular music. Most recently he has collaboratively composed and produced over 20 albums of jazz and world music with three different ensembles; Gakudan Hige Danshaku, Out of Dust and Peacemaker Global Quartet. Having lived in Beijing for 2 years, he performs regularly with End of the World, Groove Train and various jazz combos. When not performing, he is the Head of Performing Arts at Keystone Academy, Beijing.
Simon Shieh (poet)
Simon Shieh is a poet and educator. He first came to Beijing in 2007 and now considers it home. Simon is the Editor-in-Chief of the Spittoon Literary Magazine, which translates and published the best new Chinese writers in English.
Will be interpreting:
Eric Allen and James Thomason with Sara F. Costa and Nina Dillenz (VJ)
Eric Allen (musician)
Singer / songwriter Eric Allen brings his soulful sound to the China stage. In the spirit of southern American blues and Texas cowboy, Eric Allen performs his original material and covers throughout China. He has been featured as both a soloist, and as the lead singer of the Eric Allen Woodshed band, at many of China’s most well-known venues & festivals.Eric Allen (艾力克・阿兰） 为北京观众倾情奉献美国中南部心灵之地的曲目，有南方蓝调，摇滚，叛道以及西部牛仔歌曲。
James Thomason (musician)
James Thomason is a bass player / guitarist from Australia . He currently plays bass with Eric Allen’s Woodshed . As an amateur songwriter and artist he is really really excited to work with the upcoming spittoons crew !!
Sara F. Costa (poet)
Sara F. Costa is a Portuguese poet. She has published five poetry collections that won several literary prizes in Portugal. She has an MA in Intercultural Studies: Portuguese/Chinese from Tianjin Foreign Studies University. Her verses have been translated into several languages and featured in literary journals all across the world. As an emerging European poet, she was an invited author of the International Istanbul Poetry Festival 2017. In 2018, Sara worked in the organization of The Script Road-Macau Literary Festival and China-European Union Literary Festival in Shanghai and Suzhou. She translates Chinese poetry into Portuguese and is currently living in Beijing coordinating events for the Spittoon Beijing Based Arts Collective. She also hosts the bi-weekly Spittoon Poetry Workshop.
Nina Dillenz (VJ)
Nina Dillenz studied theater, film, and media at the University of Vienna and graduated with a Master of Arts, her main research topic being Chinese silent film. She moved to China in 2015, where she assisted artistic management at the Tianjin Grand Theater, then did stage photography at the Harbin Grand Theater in 2016. She currently works at the Austrian Cultural Forum in Beijing and increasingly devotes her free time to her own projects, mainly writing, visuals/ video work and theatre. Her short stories have been published on Spittoon and Shanghai based magazine Shaving in the Dark. She has created stage projections at Penghao Theatre, exhibited video works at Red Gate Gallery and is currently involved in several artistic collaborations providing visuals, such as Anthony Tao and Liane Halton’s poetry x music project “The Last Tribe on Earth” or the bimonthly techno event Blackout at Lantern Club Beijing.
will be interpreting:
The details
Another Art gallery, Shunyi, Beijing
Sunday 12 May 2019
Originally published 3 May 2019 on the Spittoon WeChat channel. Archive reference #230.
Matthew Byrne | Writer, Founder, Digital Marketer 
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