Performance Excerpt: Guan Hua and Mandarin
About
Over hundreds of years, “Zhaojun Departing for the Frontier” — the plot of which describes the Han Palace’s beautiful peace token Wang Zhaojun, who is married off to the foreign lands with a Pipa elegy — has been interpreted and reinterpreted in many forms. Her figure remains silent, a fictional character readily seen in the words of another authority who paints her in his surmises.
With my own story interwoven into a stream of historical references in dialogue with contemporary Taiwanese female writers, I become both Ma Zhiyuan’s collaborator studying the historical context of Wang Zhaojun, and an extension of Lin Daiyu from A Dream of the Red Chamber, who sighs at the fate of the Four Beauties.
As Zhaojun's story unfolds once again as a Beiguan piece, the story-teller’s story is left to be retold, shifting and obscuring the boundaries between these realities. And it is in moving across space and time that Wang Zhaojun's story begins to be unraveled...
With my own story interwoven into a stream of historical references in dialogue with contemporary Taiwanese female writers, I become both Ma Zhiyuan’s collaborator studying the historical context of Wang Zhaojun, and an extension of Lin Daiyu from A Dream of the Red Chamber, who sighs at the fate of the Four Beauties.
As Zhaojun's story unfolds once again as a Beiguan piece, the story-teller’s story is left to be retold, shifting and obscuring the boundaries between these realities. And it is in moving across space and time that Wang Zhaojun's story begins to be unraveled...
TRAIECT III Taiwan 2021:
Performance in Hannover, Germany.
Kuandu Arts Festival 2020:
Performance in Taipei, Taiwan.
TRAIECT III Taiwan 2021:
Talk on The space in between. Hannover, Germany.
Related Credits, composer Rachel C. Walker
Sendung Neue Musik | Deutschlandfunk Kultur
September 11, 2025
Portrait broadcast featuring various works: The space in between (2020), Third existence (2021), al’thalj (2022), How can a night train overtake the moon… (2024)
How Do Myths Arise?
June 18, 2022, 14.00
An der Kröpcke Uhr, Hannover, DE
Szu-Ying Hsu premieres a new dance work with The space in between (2020)
Deutschlandfunk | Atelier neuer Musik
May 7, 2022, 22:05 CET
Radio broadcast (Der Raum dazwischen: Das Projekt „Traiect Taiwan“ in Hannover) of The space in between (2020) from November 2021 performance at the Sprengel Museum with Ensemble Water Stage
KEAMSAC 2021 | Korea Electro-Acoustic Music Society’s Annual Conference
October 15-17, 2021
Seoul, Korea + Livestream (KEAMS Website/YouTube)
Paper presentation, “Beiguan and Electronics: The space in between”
ZKM ne(x)t_generation 8.5
June 25, 2021, 19.45
Online (link here)
Streamed performance of The space in between (2020)
September 11, 2025
Portrait broadcast featuring various works: The space in between (2020), Third existence (2021), al’thalj (2022), How can a night train overtake the moon… (2024)
How Do Myths Arise?
June 18, 2022, 14.00
An der Kröpcke Uhr, Hannover, DE
Szu-Ying Hsu premieres a new dance work with The space in between (2020)
Deutschlandfunk | Atelier neuer Musik
May 7, 2022, 22:05 CET
Radio broadcast (Der Raum dazwischen: Das Projekt „Traiect Taiwan“ in Hannover) of The space in between (2020) from November 2021 performance at the Sprengel Museum with Ensemble Water Stage
KEAMSAC 2021 | Korea Electro-Acoustic Music Society’s Annual Conference
October 15-17, 2021
Seoul, Korea + Livestream (KEAMS Website/YouTube)
Paper presentation, “Beiguan and Electronics: The space in between”
ZKM ne(x)t_generation 8.5
June 25, 2021, 19.45
Online (link here)
Streamed performance of The space in between (2020)
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