Toward the Border is a cross-art performance with Chinese lute, cello, sound manipulation and visuals of ‘Border, Mountain, Moon’, a traditional Chinese folk song. The project explores how to represent something so temporarily and culturally specific in a contemporary space to a contemporary audience, thinking about the tensions that are created with the evolution of this song.

‘Border, Mountain, Moon’ is a song based on a poem of the same name by the Tang Dynasty poet Li-Bai. The poem describes the nostalgic yearnings for home of soldiers looking back over the border to their homeland.

Toward the Border is performed in three sections; traditional, arranged and improvised. We equated these sections to the themes of past, present and future to describe the evolution of the performance.

Ideas behind the performance

Traditional

The traditional performance of ‘Border, Mountain, Moon’ is played on the liuqin, a Chinese lute, in its original form. Although the song is folk, we decided to marry in the dancer’s training of the ancient Chinese art form of Beijing Opera. The lutenist sat by the stage in imitation of an opera performance and the dancer choreographed a piece using the prescribed movements of Beijing Opera characters. She told the story of a grieving woman whose husband had gone to war, before transforming into the male warrior in battle. She moves from first fluid, feminine movements into proud, fighting stances.

The lutenist begins to sing in a low masculine, yet soft voice before dramatically changing to a loud, high-pitched counter-tenor, feminine voice. Therefore the strength of his voice mirrors the dancers choreography, yet the masculine and feminine is reversed, therefore creating a tension. The lighting and visuals aim to emphasize this gender tension and sense of duality. A spot light shining on the dancer provides her with a shadow, or double. The visuals show a grid, or chess board, being drawn out and at the same time being wiped away in a never-ending conflict. The grid is then placed over a mountain scene, referencing the landscape described within the content of the poem.

Arranged

The second part of Toward the Border is composed by a Jazz guitarist into three sections which incorporate the landscape themes of the traditional song; ‘border’, ‘mountain’ and ‘moon’. The piece is played on liuqin and another Chinese lute, zhongruan, accompanied by a cello.

The first section, ‘Border’, is inspired by the contemporary, minimalist composer Steve Reich who is known for looping phrase patterns. This looping gives a mechanical sense to the piece and an almost awkward disjointedness that the dancer’s jerky movements play on. ‘Mountain’ is elegant and still takes heavy influence from the Eastern phrasing of the traditional piece. The powerful chords of ‘Mountain’ suggest strength, yet they are never completely resolved giving them a sad, wistful edge. The dancer uses the walls of the performance space to create earthy movements that slowly push and pull, as she almost grows into the brick surface. The reflections in ‘Moon’ create an ethereal-sounding atmosphere that moves between melancholic and playful as the dancer manipulates an imaginary orb.

The thoughtfully irreverent visuals of the arranged section illustrate the dialogue between East and West, mirroring the arrangement’s interaction of eastern and western musical traditions. We see a man draw out a circle in the snow before placing a table in the centre. This mimics the traditional Chinese practice of sitting down to eat in a circle with family and friends, except here there is only one person futilely moving his table from one place to another in an attempt to replicate a sense of ‘group’. Also the food he is given is not a sumptuous feast, but a large frozen fish served with chips which he attempts to eat using chop sticks. The images move 360 degrees from one wall to the other, charting the movement of the restless individual.

Improvised

In the Improvised section of Toward the Border, cellist, lutenist, dancer and visuals are joined by an electronic musician who collaborates with the other artists to construct an unpredictable whole. He layers sound until the climax where a strong beat signals that the performance has reached its height. The dancer starts with thrashing, aggressive movements lying on the stage until she breaks through and reaches up in angular, self-assured movements fueled by the beat. The projected visuals are VJed throughout the performance in an attempt to join the improvised conversation of the musicians. The sound then lowers completely and slowly dies out as the dancer reaches through the audience, taking her place next to the lutenist in a return to the beginning set up of the performance.

The improvised section is the most incomplete of the three parts in a sense. It aims to look to future possibilities of experimentation with the traditional. It is an exercise in radicalising the originally traditional methods of approaching the art forms of music, dance and visuals.

Performance flyer front & back

Features a description of our event with details on venue and booking information

Dim Sum: the British Chinese community website

Features a description of the event, as well as a detailed biography of the organisers, Ying Tan and Amy McDonnell

TimeOut London

Features a description of our event with details on venue and booking information

Flicker Images: A collection of images from 2 London based photographers of our Tuesday and Wednesday performances

Photos courtesy of Ben McDonnell and Guillaume Trichet

YouTube: CNA interview by Jennifer Huang

Features interviews of Toward the Border’s organisers and artists as well as some clips of our rehearsals

CD News: A Taiwanese news service in London

Features a description of the event, background information of the organizers and Taiwanese artists Cheng-Ying Chuang, Chien-Ni Hung, and WeiChun Luo

Yahoo Taiwan

Features a description of the event, background information of the organizers and Taiwanese artists Cheng-Ying Chuang, Chien-Ni Hung, and WeiChun Luo

BBC World Service: UK China Radio

Features a radio interview of Ying Tan and Amy McDonnell talking about Toward the Border, our inspirations, how the idea came about. Also features Cheng-Ying Chuang, countertenor and lutenist

BBC World Service: UK China Website

Features an article with interviews of Ying Tan and Amy McDonnell discussing Toward the Border

Xtream East Radio: The arts show with Nikk Quentin Wolf

Features an article and interview with Ying Tan and Amy McDonnell discussing Toward the Border

After the success of Toward the Border at the Roundhouse we are planning another cross-art venture! TTB taught us both an incredible amount and allowed us to engage with Chinese culture in London, but was particularly personal for Ying as a Chinese Canadian keen to explore the interaction between traditional and contemporary China. Having spent five years studying Latin American art and literature, Amy would like to take influence from London’s vibrant Latin American community as well as a trip to Havana that she will take at the end of February. Using a similar format to Toward the Border they will take a multi-disciplinary approach to look at another culture.

Moroccan Photographic Exhibition

We will be working with the photographers Anton Davis and Ben McDonnell to put together a selection of their work taken in Marrakech last year. We will ask a musician to compose a piece of music taking inspiration from their photographs in order to see the work from a new angle.