Tangram Bound/Unbound 
LSO, St Luke’s, London

TANGRAM is a London-based music collective, founded in 2019, designed to showcase cutting-edge contemporary composition in Chinese and Western culture. Bringing together music from across four continents, they are associate artists with the LSO. 

Their previous work, Nature Echo, from January this year, was a deep multimedia reflection on global environmental issues. The latest work has been co-written by Xiaolo Guo, a Chinese-born British novelist, mesmerist and film-maker, with Tangram co-directors Alex Ho and Sun Keting. Ho and Keting co-composed the music and directed. 

The story winds round a host of powerful themes and history set over four acts. 

Growing up with bound feet in the feudal Qing Dynasty, Afong Moy in 1834 became the first Chinese woman to be brought to the US, where she was displayed before the public as a “Chinese curiosity.” 

Moy was played by the gifted South Korean soprano Haegee Lee, and her powerhouse operatic and theatrical interpretation was unique in tone and seemingly effortless. 

The second character Qiu Jin, some half a century on from Moy, was a young revolutionary, who challenged the stifling Manchu culture and changed the fate of women by unbinding her feet and taking up the art of sword fighting.

Poet, author of manifestos, and leader of a revolutionary community, Qiu Jin was determined to save her country from the corrupt Qing government, and was masterfully depicted here by Chen Yining, a dancer from Beijing. Her fluent dramatic movement was a lesson in excellence, pace and discipline, including complicated Chinese sword dance choreography.  

These two women, bound and unbound, together compose a symphonic dance, and a protest against the patriarchal world into which they were born. 

Speaking ahead of the two performances, Ho and Keting said: “Bound/Unbound aims to draw out the emotional and dramatic arcs that speak as much to the issues confronting us today as those 200 years ago. Despite living through different circumstances, Afong Moy and Qiu Jin’s lives were shaped by similar binds of patriarchy and misogyny. By bringing their stories together, we explore their shared struggle to survive and provoke questions about the intimate connections, both historical and present between China and the West.”

The staging at St Luke’s works around bold projection, depicting scenes from China to the US, newspaper articles and extensive historical references as well as abstract spiritual artwork, all projected onto three white drape structures, along with shadow puppetry and dramatic lighting.

The score weaves a number of bold and poetic movements together across the four acts, with a superb mix of Asian and Western fusion, melodies, operatic harmonic imagination and a deep rhythmic force driving the work. It is at times minimal — Toro Takemitsu-like — and at others with a full-on Aaron Copeland-inspired orchestral approach. 

Percussion comes from Beibei Wang, whose physical and demanding playing works at a high level. Her instrument set-up includes a mix of Chinese and Western percussion. Five performers from the LSO complete the line-up, with double bass, cello, violin, viola and harp. 

This is a masterful telling of new writing about China’s history, realised with a deep-rooted originality that is provocative throughout. Tangram’s work continues to push into new and exciting territory.