Crossings 2017

Between 2017 and 2018, Lemon took a couple of field recording trips to Guizhou, China, and studied with the Kam song masters in the Xiaohuang Village. The Kam (Dong, 侗族) people are an ethnic minority group that lives in the southwest of China. In the last hundreds of years, Kam people did not have a written language and lived in relatively secluded villages. History, religion, social rules, and moral values were passed down in songs. Communal singing was also the main social event that everyone was engaged in all the time. It became widely known throughout China since the 1950s, as the new government heavily promoted it for its polyphonic choral nature, influenced by the Soviet model.

Pipa is a common instrument in Kam music (as seen played by the elders who were chilling outdoors on a summer night, in the footage projected behind us in this performance), but a much older form compared to the more contemporary pipa that Sophia plays. Lemon studied with Kam song masters, but her main vocal influences are much newer styles from more dominant cultures. Technology is part of the force that pushed this music near its extinction, but also brought incredible possibility for it to find new life. Stage performance and cultural tourist industry have changed the social nature of Kam singing, but it is the main economic incentive that keeps the tradition alive among young people. By feeding these somewhat contradictory forces into one another, we all get entangled in the past and present of Kam music, and become part of its history through the performance. Perhaps something new and alive will be created in the process.  

Based on a tune taught to Lemon by Pan Sayinhua, a Kam song master in Xiaohuang Village

Video projection by Mengtai Zhang, footage recorded by Ethan Edwards