TARAS was specially comissioned by MuHa to the Artist and Director Zeng Tu from Babel 7 studio, Sichuan Fine Art Institute, Chongqing, China. Back in 2010 Zeng Tu was a resident artist in Derby Quad. Louise Clements -MuHa bass player and the director of FORMAT festival- brought Tu around to MuHa gig in Nottingham. Tu truly appreciated MuHa music and suggested he and his team could make the animation movie for one of our soundtracks.
Since we released the album Taras in 2010, I always wanted to make a video for the song that gave the name to the album. The Cossack warriors theme is Ukrainian historic epos, Tarars Bulba is a big figure embedded into cultural consciousness of Ukrainian people. The song as well, came out really strong – I think my native roots gave an extra bit of power to it. To make a video for Taras song was an impossible task for us as it involved having Cossack battle on horses on a battlefield – the production cost was just not affordable for the self label. Having Tu’s offer I could not believe our luck! During my college years I became a fan of animation and can appreciate how tedious and time consuming the animation is.
Sixteen months later the team of four animators of Babel 7, directed by Zeng Tu presented us with this awesome 3D movie that reflected everything I ever imagined for Taras and beyond. They made a good research on Ukrainian and Russian traditional designs and juxtaposed it to the distinctive Asian style visuals. The result is a breathtaking timeless journey that takes the viewer through the centuries of wars, telling the story of what it means for the families. The song has gained a new powerful dimension.
I would really love to come to China to meet these incredibly talented people and see the production drafts and developments. Would be awesome to create collaborative audio- visual programme with Zen Tu team and make more friends from around the globe.
