Grounding the Diaspora: Musical Reinterpretations of the Elements from Traditional Chinese Thought

• In Event: Musical Crossings: Tradition and Rupture in Asian Identity Formation

Abstract

Chinese composers have thrived since the latter half of the twentieth century, winning grants and commissions from Europe, Asia, and North America. Many of them have studied and eventually settled abroad from mainland China, thus constituting a leading voice of the Chinese diaspora. This paper examines how the composers “ground” the diaspora by way of invoking selected aspects of Chinese culture, specifically the significance of the natural elements in the traditional Chinese worldview. As the composers forge a globalized and cosmopolitan Chinese identity, even concepts as fundamental as the elements are subjected to multiple interpretations. Steeped in the Chinese philosophical tradition, Chen Qigang imparts sound to the concepts of water, wood, fire, earth, and metal in Wu Xing (“The Five Elements,” 1998), and establishes a generative relationship among the materials. The elements take on a separate significance in Zhou Long’s Jin-Shi-Si-Zhu (“Metal, Stone, Silk, Bamboo,” 1997). Modeled upon the ceremonial court music Da Qu from the Tang Dynasty, Zhou explores the physicality of the elements, which make up the Chinese organology. Having been exposed to the American avant-garde experimental tradition, Tan Dun crosses John Cage’s “environmental music” with the ritualistic aspects of the elements, creating a series of “organic music” in which water bowls, ceramics, and paper take center stage. These three case studies are manifestations of the fluidity in the formation of a diasporic Chinese identity, showcasing the paradoxical complements of the earthly and the cosmic, the abstract and the literal, and the traditional and the avant-garde.

Author

• Serena Wang, The Graduate Center, CUNY