FULL MOUNTAINS AND SEAS, SONG OF TODAY Interdisciplinary Performance (Beibei Wang) London 2025

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: MOUNTAINS AND SEAS, SONG OF TODAY  
• Composer: Beibei Wang  
• Libretto: Daniel York Loh, Inspired by the 4th-century BCE Chinese classic The Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shan Hai Jing)    Libretto Text, Libretto Index
• Venue & Opera Company: Omnibus Theatre, London, UK  
• Recorded: Decemeber 5, 2025
• Type: Staged Opera Live
• Singers: Jennifer Lim, Tash Tung, Fan Jiayi, He Song Yuan
• Conductor:   
• Orchestra:
• Stage Director: Xie Rong  
• Stage Designer: Danni Zheng, Ao Lei  
• Costume Designer: Yiran Duan, Yi Craft Studio  

Information about the Recording

• Published by: Echo Morgan  
• Date Published: 2026  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: yessubs, ensubs  

• ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

  By Beverly Andrews

  How do you comment on a world that appears to be spinning out of control? With so many crises at play globally, one might well ask: where do we start? That is why this new, genre-defying production, created by acclaimed artist Xie Rong and writer–director–musician Daniel York Loh, feels so timely. It is a mammoth work that explores many of our current crises — climate change, activism, rising global fascism, and a collective existential dread — through a startlingly original fusion of poetry, movement, music, and visual art. It is a production that, in many ways, defies description.

  Xie Rong describes the origins of this work as follows: “This piece was born from grief and urgency. Over the past two years we have witnessed relentless violence in Gaza, the rise of fascism, and chants of ‘send them back’ echoing across the UK, the US, and beyond. When Dr Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian academic, writer, poet, and activist, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on December 6, 2023, his poem If I Must Die stayed with me — a reminder that when reality offers no hope, we loosen our flesh and only ideas remain.”

  She goes on to say: “In that silence, I found myself returning to the Classic of Mountains and Seas — a text of mythical creatures and imagined worlds where all beings coexist. Its ancient vision helped me hold the brokenness of today. Sharing these stories with Daniel York Loh, he shaped them into a script both poetic and politically fierce.”

  

  Presented as a fusion of music, poetry, and dance, Mountains and Seas – Song of Today takes us from past to present, from myth to our troubling daily reality, viewed through Asian eyes. It reminded me how often we see the world primarily through a Western lens; rarely are these global events presented from non-Western perspectives.

  The beautiful music by composer Beibei Wang plays almost continuously, at times accompanying two stunning dancers who seem to control time itself, creating an otherworldly atmosphere whenever they appear on stage. The narrative draws heavily on ancient Chinese texts, giving the production an ethereal feel, while our present-day, nightmarish reality periodically intrudes — through references to daily anti-immigrant rhetoric or continual warnings of climate apocalypse. These contemporary moments serve as chilling reminders of where many Western countries now stand, with immigrant and minority communities increasingly demonised.

  Quoted from https://form-idea.com/mountains-and-seas-song-of-today/

   

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