Concert Information
Monopol Berlin Concert Information 6/21 19:00-20:30
Kunst-Station Sankt Peter Köln Concert Information 6/25 19:00
Performance Excerpt: Lo-Bah-Png
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About the Work
"Full interview with NeuMerz about the work."
Sanmao, also known as Echo, was born in 1943. Sanmao was a Taiwanese travel writer who spent half of her life abroad; married to José, her Spanish husband, in 1971, she lived in the Sahara Desert and published her most renowned work, The Stories of the Sahara. During the post-war period, when travel was restricted and less common, Sanmao left her footprints all over Europe, North Africa, and America.
Sanmao's experiences in the desert are penned down in simple but mesmerizing words and published in the press. To young female Taiwanese students whose lives were restricted within a conservative educational system, she is a symbol of a free and bold woman who followed her own voice in search of her own definition of life and love.
We never learn the full nature of Sanmao, this earliest and most important Taiwanese female literary travel writer. A part of her is seen through her diary-like prose for her Taiwanese and Chinese readers, but a larger part is left with the people in the Western Sahara (occupied by Spain at the time); José, the love of her life; the childhood trauma that suspended her in time; and her familiars in the West.
What are the faces of Sanmao?
Sanmao's earlier writings reveal a colorful and illustrated inner world. Later writings from the desert are plain and simple, and those from the time before her eventual suicide leave readers in sorrow for her loss of José. Her language is always light and soft, as though she is only a part of the surroundings that form her life rather than the leading actress; within her words, there is always a kind of unrestricted flow. Changes in her linguistic style can only show us a portion of what these experiences may have meant to her.
Through the lenses separating Sanmao and her surroundings, we view a set of photography of ourselves. What has stayed the same and what has left us in the time following her travels? Perhaps our attraction towards Sanmao speaks to something within, and, as we peek into her life, we are peeking into our own lives between the East and the West: as a Taiwanese writer and percussionist who have lived in Europe and an American composer who has lived in Europe and Asia.
To present our answers as a communication through time and space, we weave our own stories into selected texts of Sanmao. Our methodology for the text includes elements of improvisation and word play to form a script consisting of Sanmao's own voice in combination with her surroundings. The languages from Sanmao’s lived environments – and our own – are used to form the script.
The electronics and the vocalizations of the percussionist create a web of multiple story lines and narratives. Instruments that serve the musicality of the story are both ones constructed for the piece, as well as objects that are alluded to in Sanmao's work.
January 2022, last edit 2026.
Sanmao's experiences in the desert are penned down in simple but mesmerizing words and published in the press. To young female Taiwanese students whose lives were restricted within a conservative educational system, she is a symbol of a free and bold woman who followed her own voice in search of her own definition of life and love.
We never learn the full nature of Sanmao, this earliest and most important Taiwanese female literary travel writer. A part of her is seen through her diary-like prose for her Taiwanese and Chinese readers, but a larger part is left with the people in the Western Sahara (occupied by Spain at the time); José, the love of her life; the childhood trauma that suspended her in time; and her familiars in the West.
What are the faces of Sanmao?
Sanmao's earlier writings reveal a colorful and illustrated inner world. Later writings from the desert are plain and simple, and those from the time before her eventual suicide leave readers in sorrow for her loss of José. Her language is always light and soft, as though she is only a part of the surroundings that form her life rather than the leading actress; within her words, there is always a kind of unrestricted flow. Changes in her linguistic style can only show us a portion of what these experiences may have meant to her.
Through the lenses separating Sanmao and her surroundings, we view a set of photography of ourselves. What has stayed the same and what has left us in the time following her travels? Perhaps our attraction towards Sanmao speaks to something within, and, as we peek into her life, we are peeking into our own lives between the East and the West: as a Taiwanese writer and percussionist who have lived in Europe and an American composer who has lived in Europe and Asia.
To present our answers as a communication through time and space, we weave our own stories into selected texts of Sanmao. Our methodology for the text includes elements of improvisation and word play to form a script consisting of Sanmao's own voice in combination with her surroundings. The languages from Sanmao’s lived environments – and our own – are used to form the script.
The electronics and the vocalizations of the percussionist create a web of multiple story lines and narratives. Instruments that serve the musicality of the story are both ones constructed for the piece, as well as objects that are alluded to in Sanmao's work.
January 2022, last edit 2026.