Concept:

i made a spotify playlist with only chinese songs that i like to dance with began as a personal ritual and evolved into an embodied performance practice that bridges diaspora, memory, and artistic inquiry. And this video was placed and played before the actual presentation as an introduction to the practice.

 

As an immigrant navigating the complexities of cultural dislocation, I found myself returning to Chinese music as a way to reinhabit lost or fading aspects of self—language, rhythm, emotional cadence, and ancestral connection.

 

Through a self-curated Spotify playlist composed solely of Chinese-language songs, this practice became both a daily warm-up and an improvisational score for movement. Dancing in solitude—often in transient spaces while touring—I allow spontaneous gestures to emerge in response to melodies, tonal inflections, and lyrical textures. This dialogue between body and sound becomes a means of remembering, reclaiming, and reimagining identity.

 

What began as a quiet act of self-preservation has since transformed into a performative offering: a live research of how sound, language, and cultural specificity can shape embodied expression. By channeling the emotional resonances of Chinese music—whether folk, pop, experimental, or traditional—I explore a space between personal archive and collective cultural memory, between inherited form and contemporary improvisation. This work honors the intimate power of the mother tongue and the sustaining presence of movement as both witness and medicine.

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Music:

Talk To Myself (自言自语) by Duan Yingmei

Closet Singer (衣柜歌手) by HUSH

Thousands of Miles (千里万里) by AIR

The Finest Time (最好的时光) by Pu An

Night's Children (夜的孩子) by Aflou