The Other Side of Hope, China Tour (2024)
For three months in 2024, VJ Suave toured China as special guest of Amber Kuo (Kuo Tsai-chieh) on The Other Side of Hope, the tour by the band Mola Oddity, creating visuals projected live from Shanghai to Chengdu.
spring in china
The tour kicked off on March 29 at Bandai Namco Shanghai Dream Hall and wrapped up in late May, with stops at Sofun Livehouse in Shenzhen, Tai Space in Guangzhou, 1701 Livehouse Max in Nanjing, Damai 66 in Hangzhou, Fulang Livehouse in Beijing and the Zhenghuo Art Center in Chengdu. In between came the festivals: the Strawberry Music Festival in Fuzhou in early April and again in Hangzhou in May, and the Chun You Music Festival in Chengdu, on an open-air stage under a hand-drawn rainbow.
the animations
Every animation was hand-drawn and animated in 2D to carry the arc of the whole show, by Paulo Stoker and Ygor Marotta, with assistance from Lucas Fiacadori. Scenes full of characters, rainbows, animals and other elements, made for 18 songs of these shows, move across the LED wall in time with the music.
club nights
Alongside the concert and festival dates ran a second circuit: the LOFi MOSH nights, 9 Days of Dreamcore Aquarium, which took the project to ALL Club in Shanghai, LOOPY in Hangzhou, OIL in Shenzhen, Pillbox in Beijing and AXIS in Chengdu.
On those nights, VJ Suave teamed up with Renata Chebel on spontaneous visuals, mixing the tour material with glitches from a modular video synthesizer. With the club sets leaning more electronic, the visuals were rethought and improvised live, in a language of their own.
The documentary in the video above was directed by Renata Chebel.
