Susan Hwang

I really have been doing things. Documenting things––not so much, but doing things, sure. Kinda non-stop. Making things. Sharing things. Making times––with and without accordions.

This is footage from a recent performance at Theater For The New City, representing Yara Arts Group.

I sang two songs with lyrics from poems by Serhiy Zhadan––Ukraine’s most celebrated contemporary poet.

Marlon Cherry on percussion and backing vocals. Ed Pastorini on piano.

These are the poems:

AVIATION 58 by Serhiy Zhadan

Stand a long time at the edge of a snowy field,
Hesitating to taking the first step
into the endless expanse of snow, the endless expanse of language,
observing the bird’s wing of winter,
Maybe this time you’ll manage to cross to the silence,
Maybe this time you’ll manage to find the balance between
light and dark.
Maybe this time everything will work out and the syllables will open
the heart of the smallest reader,
like a river in winter.
While taking up the hard task of reading,
I know how hard it is to convince yourself
that it will really help.
I know how hard it is to admit
that what’s really important
are the simple things –
breath held because
of an unexpected connection of words,
light which comes down from above
because of a well selected melody –
simple things that distract us from
grave illness and family tragedy.
So, let’s try it again.
From the top.
From that place where there is nothing,
but anything can exist.
Books cannot save us,
But at least we won’t be afraid of what we’ve read.
Poets cannot teach us bravery,
But a meeting them should not cause fear.
Let’s try it again.
Let’s not be afraid.
Hold books in hand,
like birds we gathered after the snow –
not all will fly
not all will return.
Still you should not let them drop.
They should all be warmed.
They should all be equal in the face of death.

Translated from the Ukrainian
by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps

LIGHT by Serhiy Zhadan

Light.
A great light rises
on all marked by darkness, on all,
so gripped by fear, they can’t
enter the dark home,
where in the emptiness you feel the presence of a stranger
and voices gone are the ones you hear.

A year of ant-like determination.
A year of calling out names
that will never answer you.

We heard inside the unsettling echo of the sound,
Like the flight of a bird though the air,
like the invisible work of plants 
that give life to a wasteland.
Because the light rises on the tame and rises on the wild,
on those broken by screams, on those mad with sorrow,
and language, like a lung, burned by pain
comes to life, resounds and does its work
filling us with 
sound like wine.

This is why we love you.
Great god of signs and letters,
generous ruler of personal names,
whose presence we notice
between silence and too much talk.
You’re in the unseen syllables of sound, where, like grass,
the important things grow:
The name of the land,
The name of the river,
The name of your beloved.

Translated from Ukrainian by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps

The band name is a word mash-up from the mind of Nan Turner, and I like that the origins have anything to do with her genius and her wild sense of fun. Her fun roams wild and free. On Saturday, she was in the audience, and on Sunday, I joined her on stage for her set presenting excerpts of her new figure-skating musical/rock opera about Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan, Oksana Bayul and Courtney Love. And Scott Hamilton and Vern.

I like the idea of presenting music and story together, so it makes me think of how else to develop this and what can grow out of the song I have explaining the back story of the portrait of my mom and dad taken at the Sears in Montgomery Mall circa 1981.

That’s Leslie Graves holding up the pic. Julie Delano is on my other side and Anthony Coleman at the piano. Marlon Cherry was there, but it’s a small stage at Rockwood, and he set up on the floor (never again! I need him closer).

Here are more of the photos from East Village photographer and journalist, Bob Krasner.

Instead of having a dramatic costume change, I had a hair change. I just let my hair down as a demonstration of a beauty trick/optical illusion. My theory is––the bigger your hair, the smaller your body looks. So instead of dieting, just break out the aquanet. New years resolutions, schmesolutions!

So… We’re getting the band back together! Well, we got the band together a couple weeks ago to play our first full set in nine years at Bowery Electric, invited by our friends Jim Andralis and The Syntonics and Larry Krone.

It was kind of a dream, as you can see from the gif/animation thing above.. a fuscia dream, but still a dream. This must be what is called “living the dream.”

We are dreaming again:

January 13th (4pm Relastics s / 5pm Julie and The Dad)
Rockwood Music Hall, Stage 1
196 Allen st.
NYC

Related show

• Artist: Soozee Hwang & The Relastics
• Date: 01/13/24
• Time: 4:00pm
• Venue: Rockwood Music Hall
• City: New York , NY
• Address: 196 Allen St.
• Country: United States
• Admission: by donation
• Age restrictions: All Ages
• More information
• Notes: We’re opening for Julie & The Dads! It’s a late afternoon weekend show – 4pm start! Let’s get dinner afterwards.
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Is it boring to talk about the weather? Is it mundane to mention the seasons? I don’t know, sometimes boring is great. Sometimes boring is just what you need, and it takes a lot for me to say that, with my general stance since I was born being that everything should be fun all the time. But I’m thinking now that there’s fun even in boredom. See those threads of fun in the fabric of boredom? What a trick.

It’s been kinda an explosion of extroversion. I was not exactly ready for it, but I think I did okay. Remember that first “party” where it was everybody’s first time in a room with other people, and you were all trying to remember how to socialize? Everyone felt conversationally clumsy. I was all thumbs. My friend Virlana said she was having trouble discerning whether she had just spoken a thought aloud or not. Boy, was it thrilling just to feel that awkward. With people.

Ooo. I’m just realizing that you need people for awkwardness at all. I mean, you can’t feel awkward alone. Can you? So “social awkwardness” is redundant. There might not be such a thing as solitary awkwardness. At least I hope not.

Other thrilling (and somewhat awkward) things in my book:

Released this video for Yara Arts with lyrics from Serhiy Zhadan’s poem “Psalm to Aviation #58.” And thanks “Ukrainian Weekly” for covering the release event in this article by Olena Jennings!

And Lila Eaton, the daughter of my best friend from freshman year at college, was here with her TRUMPET and learned the parts *that day* to perform at the release with me and Marlon! Omg. Trumpet dreams do come true.

Journalist and photographer Bob Krasner also covered Bushwick Book Club‘s first in-person and live streamed event for AM New York. It was a creative feast and a much needed, heartening gathering of artists, musicians and author. I would describe that show for Brandy Schillace’s Mr. Humble & Dr. Butcher as spectacular and deeply satisfying, and Bob’s article really caught the moment and all the layers of meaning in the article and photos.

Okay THEN… Bushwick Book Club presented our first stage at the Porchstomp music festival on Governor’s Island. Here’s some of the documenting I was able to do:

There’s music happening. It’s in multi-dimensional realms with mythical creatures like in the new music video for Charlie’s TIGHTROPE. It’s also right here on the stoop in the East Village with special guest drop-ins like the magnetic irresistible Penny Arcade coming up to sing a few songs.

I’ll include the video clips here, and just so you know, there will be a live stream on January 23rd for 7MPR Dance Company on Facebook. Plus, the first Bushwick Book Club live stream of 2021 is coming February 13th for Kurt Vonnegut’s TIMEQUAKE. There are incredible songwriters chomping at the bit for this! Or rather, they’re chewing their Vonnegut and turning every bite into brand new literary-song GOLD!

On the stoop for Accordion Fridays:

It was great to have Penny Arcade there to do a cover of Marlon Cherry’s “Just How Beautiful (You Are)” with Marlon on percussion. She sang to all of 2nd Avenue… when she performs, she opens all of her heart. I felt like she was extending her love to everyone who passed the whole city of course. It was exciting to have her be our special guest for the live stream.

I do a lot of nothing too. Just swaths, gobs of nothing. And sometimes, even if I am doing something, whatever it is, it is surely not the right thing or enough.

Here is some documentation of things I have done the past few months. I should document the nothing too I suppose. Why not? Oh, I get it now… What I’m presenting here now is the documentation of nothing. Here’s the nothing I’ve been doing.

Interview on Sub Rosa Sound Radio

Host, Ariel Wang, and I had a lot of fun talking about music and songwriting, Bushwick Book Club, creativity, what to wear for zoom meetings…

Fermented Black Garlic

Fermentation is a journey. Here’s the path of Black Garlic timed to the Full Moon in Pisces.

The start

The finish

A clip from a Lusterlit set in Seward Park. Music in front of actual people without a computer!!!

Speaking of PINCLOUDS, here’s a video I put together of Claudi from that afternoon set to music I recorded of theirs in Tompkins Square Park earlier in the month:

Accordion Babes’ Accordion Fridays

Also, here’s my latest live stream from Accordion Babe’s Accordion Fridays performance series. Oh, the joy of accordioning accompanied by the wonderful Marlon Cherry on percussion, backing vocals and kazoo.

Related show

• Artist: Susan Hwang w/ Marlon Cherry for Accordion Babes Accordion Fridays
• Date: 09/11/20
• Time: 4:00pm
• Venue: Facebook.com/susanhwanglalala
• City: New York
• Country: United States
• Age restrictions: No Minors
• Notes: Playing a live streamed set of songs on accordion accompanied by percussionist, Marlon Cherry. Join us at facebook.com/susanhwanglalala or the Accordion Babes FB page! This is part of whole afternoon of performances from Accordion Babes’ international accordion community!
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• Artist: Bushwick Book Club
• Date: 09/24/20
• Time: 7:00pm
• Venue: Facebook.com/bushwickbookclub
• City: Brooklyn , NY
• Address: facebook.com/bushwickbookclub
• Country: United States
• Admission: by donation
• Age restrictions: No Minors
• More information
• Notes: DANCERS ON THE SHORE by William Melvin Kelley. This is the first of three live streamed shows in response to “Lost Giant of American Literature” and godfather of “woke” William Melvin Kelley’s book of short stories, DANCERS ON THE SHORE. Kelley’s daughter, artist Jesi Kelley, will be giving a reading and presenting her own art inspired by the book along with performances from 12 artists and musicians from NY, LA, London and Las Vegas. This kick-off event for DANCERS ON THE SHORE will feature performances by BBC Founder, Susan Hwang, spiritchild, Prince Akeem, Charlie Nieland (Lusterlit), Ray Brown, Troy Ogilvie w/ Sean Gannet, Teresa Toro, Sung Uni Lee, Stacy Rock (LA), Timothy Dark (Las Vegas), Amanda Thorpe (London) and Grace Solero (London). Future shows for DANCERS ON THE SHORE will also be live streamed by Bushwick Book Club London and Bushwick Book Club Los Angeles later in the year. Proceeds from the live stream show will be shared with arts education and revolutionary community building organization Urban Art Beat. Founded in Brooklyn in 2009, the Bushwick Book Club meets every month and employs the talents of local songwriters and artists who plumb the depths of a chosen literary gem to create that rare and beautiful thing–a new song (or visual art, dance, film or snack). All songs are then performed at a live show. The Bushwick Book Club now has several branches all over the world, including Malmö (Sweden), London, LA, Seattle, Maplewood (NJ), Greenville (SC) and New Orleans. Listen to The Bushwick Book Club Podcast on iTunes and SoundCloud. About DANCERS ON THE SHORE The first and only short story collection by William Melvin Kelley, author of A Different Drummer, and the source from which he drew inspiration for his subsequent novels. Originally published in 1964, this collection of sixteen stories includes three linked sets of stories about the Carey, Bedlow, and Dunford families. They represent the earliest work of William Melvin Kelley and provided a rich source of stories and characters who were to fill out his later novels. Spanning generations from the Deep South during Reconstruction to New York City in the 1960s, these insightful stories depict African American families—their struggles, their heartbreak, and their love. About the author: William Melvin Kelley was born in New York City in 1937 and attended the Fieldston School and Harvard. The author of four novels and a short story collection, he was a writer in residence at the State University of New York at Geneseo and taught at The New School and Sarah Lawrence College. He was awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for lifetime achievement and the Dana Reed Prize for creative writing. He died in 2017. In 2014, Kelley was officially credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with coining the political term “woke” in a 1962 New York Times article entitled “If You’re Woke You Dig It.”
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