MOSS SUTRA

(A working title)

A New Chamber Opera/Oratorio

With Four Acts/Movements

Yi Qian, Composer and Librettist

Wesley Chinn, Music Director

Singers:

Abagael Cheng, Soprano

Samantha Martin, Soprano

Molly McGuire, Mezzo-Soprano

Kirsten Sollek, Contralto

Emerson Sieverts, Tenor

Kannan Vasudevan, Tenor

Daniel Chiu, Baritone

Tom Meglioranza, Baritone

Joe Chappell, Bass

Paul Greene-Dennis, Bass

Paul Whelan, Bass

Ensemble:

Philip Cheah, Piano

Neil Beckmann, Guitar

Yoshi Weinberg, Flute, Piccolo, and Harp

Andrea Abel, Flute/Alto Flute

Sebastian Stoger, Cello

Oliver Barrett, Trombone

Colleen Bernstein, Percussion

Josh Perry, Percussion

Jared Soldiviero, Percussion

Adam Robinson, Shakuhachi

Master Yip MingMei, Gu Qin

Li Sun, Da Ruan/Pipa

Music Engraving:

Ani Chong

English proofreader, mentor, editor:

Nancy Reale

Susan Jain

幽兰 Jain

Evan Eisenberg

Amy Mereson

Julian Crouch

Leonard Porter

Elinor Porter

Synopsis

(Jump to Libretto)

Prelude — In Between Worlds
Eons ago, on a snowy mountain top one woman joined with two more women, chanting for a sense of greater bliss. A semi-celestial deity lands in front of the trio and sings a Moss Song. The trio receives a new form of song and dance from the deity. This form will become the first Chinese opera. When it is time for deity to leave, he gives the chanters a pair of eyes, saying when they can truly see, he will return.

Interlude — A Crystal Shard
In another dimension, a crystal shard is falling in the air, and a message is sent from a pair of deities, telling the crystal shard: “Don’t sink”.

Act One — Scene one — A Moss and The Encompassing Garden
Time passes and thousands of years of sand and dust accumulate into an encompassing garden. A small moss lives there. The silent dialogue between nature and the moss reveals to the moss an adage, “slowly, let life, and life will manifest itself” and an ambient song plays.

Act One — Scene Two — The Gifts of the Garden
The song leads Xun, a contemporary Chinese opera singer, to cross over a threshold. She finds an ancient Greek-style iron chair with a fan on its seat. The song starts again, and the fan becomes a lover. It approaches Xun, and they sing a duet about true love. Their song is informed by the beauty of gardens and theaters. In the end, Xun decides that the fan, while clever, is not meant to be her true love. This time, nature’s ambient song comes from the night fog.

Act Two — Scene One — Something’s Got to Change
Through the patina created by the night fog, the audience sees that outside of the garden is 1860 Beijing. There, a contingent from the British navy, denied entry by the emperor, grows restless as attempts at trade and diplomacy are failing. The garden is inside a palace and living there is a historical Chinese opera tenor. He clings to the timelessness of the place and garden. The garden's voice chants to alarm both the tenor and the British. The frustrated British leader, Lord Elgin, decides to burn the garden to the ground.

Act Two — Scene Two — In Between worlds, Sea God is Calling
The Sea God hums. It is calling humans to the ocean. Humans including Xun are departing under the moonlight, slipping into the waves leaving their ancestors. But Xun freezes and falls down on a deserted beach.

Interlude — A Creature From Space
The sky zooms out, the audience sees from out of the universe something swirly flying toward Xun. It is a mythical bird with amber to warm Xun. From the light and warmth of the piece of amber, Xun has a vision of her past of a huge fire.

Act Three — Scene One — Elgin’s Chant
In Beijing Lord Elgin sings an aria about his painful past with his father and his view of coming back to the east. Under his order, the British navy enters the encompassing garden, they chant and burn the garden down and loot it.

Act Three — Scene Two — The Ambient Song
The stage is burnt and empty, only a circle of moonlight. This time it is the moonlight that sings the ambient song "New Cells". The audience understands that time and space expands to a new dimension. An un-gendered youth, made of both fire and ice, rises up from the ashes. They sing the story of a young Zen Buddhist monk who devotes his youth to his master’s magic. Buddhist chanters chant about eternal love that can neither be possessed nor lost.

Act Four — Scene one — Nature’s way
The chanting expands, the narrative spirals back through time into China’s far past at the dawn of pictographic writing. There a young priest is given a final lesson from his old master about nature’s way. He must fulfill his duty to send 20 prisoners of war to the capital where the chief oracle awaits them.

Act Four — Scene Two — Composing a Word
The young priest develops a friendship with the 20 girls over a journey of three years on foot. He suspects they will be sacrificed and plans to save them from the ceremony. He also dreams of being a great calligrapher like his old master. The 20 girls sing a lullaby to him about the virtue of being patient and humble like a speck of dust in the light.

Act Four — Scene three — The Oracle: Be Free
When the group arrives at the capital they learn all of them will be burned to death. In the course of this ritual, the mystical truth of pictorial calligraphy is revealed. The essence of calligraphy connects the seeking mind to the truth of the world. This time nature sings a ripple song about a ceremony of the ripples carrying out endless love and compassion to the universe.

Finale — Humility as the History Goes On
With this discovery, the searching and unknown elements of the piece have come together to form the voices of the ever-lost human spirits. The fragments of the human voices who have been seeking boundlessly, are unified with falling snow. Now Xun understands how to hold her fan; she opens and closes it freely making a smooth turn, and the images the fan creates are endless formations.

Epilogue — A Traveler After All
The female voices trio sings about a journey that starts with a beam of light and one little voice.

Ambient Song Variation #5 Happy Moss.
The voices of the mosses, are boundless with great silence and joy.

Libretto

Prelude

Singing In Between Worlds

On a snowy mountain top, eons ago

A Woman and Two Female Chanters

(The group can be simply be three equal female chanters, for this reading)

Lingering

Eternal game

Flowing

Between worlds

Rolling thunder drums

Waves on waves

Leave a few remain

Sleep as asleep

Sphere forms sphere

Yet flowers not flowers

Moon in moon

Where will it go?

Where will I go?

[In the snow, a Semi-deity lands on the mountain top.]

Woman and Two Female Chanters

Forgetting

Now and when

Lost in the twilight

Ten thousand names

Both mortals and immortals

Revealed behind the mask

Beaming eyes …

Deity

Singing In Between Worlds

Rootless

Flowerless

Female Chanters

Scentless

Voiceless

Deity

Lucid Fragrance

Exudes

Rendering

The Transparent Tune

In Solemn Light

Female Chanters

unknown

and

unfound

[A snow storm begins]

Female Chanters

Snowy origin

A brook sprawls and tumbles

Pebble shrines

Only rainclouds now remain

When will we see each other again?

Deity

Here is a pair of true eyes

Take them please

When you can truly see

I will return.

[Deity leaves with his snow vehicle]

Woman and Female Chanters

Lingering

Eternal game

Flowing

Between worlds

Earth ocean mountains

winds endless cycles

Interlude

A Crystal Shard

In Another Dimension, while a woman body is falling slowly, a message sent from a pair of deities

A Female Chanter

Sinking

Down

A Pair of Deities

Dissolving

Into

Unknown

Place

A Female Chanter

Floating

Silence

The eternal game

Lingering

Unheard

A Pair of Deities

Dream of

A crystal shard

Tormented

And

Released

A Female Chanter

Where will it go?

Where will I go?

A Pair of Deities

A sound without sound

Untouched by anything

Rises and reveals

Its own mind

Created

Deep

Inside

A frozen

Inner sea

Don’t sink

Act One

Scene one

Moss Chant In An Encompassing Garden

There is a timeless encompassing garden, there is also a little moss lives inside, with an attitude.

Female Chanters as one little Moss

Foliage

Gathered

Moon

Water

Foggy Rocks

Shine In

Misty Night

With evening dew wings fold in

Silent

Quatrains

Reaching

Into

A dark chest

An Encompassing Garden

Sunlight

Dapples

As the Ripples

Dance

They Form

and die

Form

and die

Forgetting

Now and when

Between

One chain of motif

And a dulcis leaf

Rejuvenating

As flying petals fall

Cast Their spells

Thunder claps

As lightning strikes

Did I create this first

did it create me?

[Sunlight dapples on tree leaves, it comes together as the nature’s voice, telling the moss:“Allow it, let it manifest, let it manifest…”]

The Ambient Song

Nonverbal Communication

sasasasa

hee hee hee

woo woo woo

yuu yuu yuu

Act One

Scene Two

The Gifts of the Garden

The nature’s ambient song leads a woman (from the female chanters) to cross over a threshold. where an ancient Greek-style iron chair (Pinder’s famous iron chair) sets there, with a fan left on the seat.

Male Chanter

“The great Emathian conqueror

Bid spare The garden of Pindarus,

when temple and tower

went to the ground.” *

Female Chanter

Seasons change

Rocks turn to sand

Rainbow bridges

Vanish in clouds

Still surviving

This folding fan.

This is how to open it,

[The woman has a name: Xun. She makes a happy emotion while unfolding the fan, Chinese opera theater form]

and this is how to close it.

[Xun makes sad emotion while folding the fan, also a Chinese opera theater form]

Xun and Female Chanter

It is a handful

and just handful

I am cold ……

This encompassing garden

Formed as it ought to be,

but why do I feel something is missing?

* The passage in quotes is by John Milton. The word “home” in the original passage has been changed to “garden.”

[As Xun opens the fan a garden appears on stage, under the moon. Nature is speaking again with its same idea.]

The Ambient Song Variation #1

Humidity — Nonverbal Communication

sasasasa

Recounting A Dream

Xun

“We lay on grass and faced the sky.

But what if heavens should spy?

It was eternal time, when we enjoyed life’s prime.”*

[The Fan which Xun is holding, transformed into a human form as a lover.]

The Folding Fan

Xun

Glimmer

The Fan

Emerges

after the polishing

displaying

an imposed intention

Xun

Scent

Flows

The Fan

Behind

the lofty lintel

Nourishing

An immoderate identity

Xun and The Fan

Two

Exquisite diagonal lines

Extending

To the edges of the world

Generating

A pair of perfectly balanced triangles

Through precise calculation

Layers of views

Carefully mapped out,

Loading each step

With fresh new scenery for the senses

Gathering all the elements

Into one pocket for contemplation

Xun and The Fan Duet

You were born in nature

Then you became artificial

Who truly created you?

You are flexible

but it is hard to command you

in lingering rhymes

who thus formed you?

You are an ancient butterfly

but you are blinded by patterns and motifs

how to un-trifle you?

From the east to the west

you were an enigma passed on

through generations

But you remained in the hands of the great families

the secret language to hide their longings

You integrated the ambiguity of different worlds

You mingled the histories of different nations

Xun Solo

How do you stand

to set the world before you know who you are?

Alas!

How to unfold you?

Help me feel the moment of

In glimmer,

“He pulled me softly to the ground,

permeated with springtime warmth around.” *

Women Chanters/Xun

Something should be here

but is not here yet.

Xun

Moonlight

fractured into pieces,

silver frost

falls into my arms ……

* The passage in quotes is a translation of the Peony Pavilion, translated by Cyril Birch.”

The Ambient Song Variation #1 part 2

Night Fog — Nonverbal Communication

sasasasa

hee hee hee

woo woo woo

yuu yuu yuu

Act Two

Scene One

Something got to Change

The encompassing garden expands as the awareness’s intention keeps manifest. A historical self centered Chinese opera performer, a tenor, is trapped inside of his own giant hourglass, it has snow falls as the background view. The English soldiers are also stuck outside of this encompassing garden in Beijing 1860.

Chinese opera Tenor

Sands flow in quietness

Scenes within frames

Garden as a Chanter

Tower of stone

Commands the surreal sky

Chinese opera Tenor

Twisting shadows

layered upon the silver plate

Garden as a Chanter

Like a shadowy claw

Summoning him from within the wall

Chinese opera Tenor

As earthen dust

collects on her brows

Soldiers

what garden is this?

and how vast!

The emperor shuts the gates

Elgin remains outside night after night

Chinese opera Tenor

Forgetting now and when

Between one inch of frost and a moss bed,

Winter shares its course with a remote heart and mind

ending a love song measure by measure

Elgin

Father brought only shame to the family,

at the crumbled antique temple

he took the best parts,

To fulfill his own ancient fantasy

Now returned to the east

I, a very different son

Chinese opera Tenor

Scroll of fine silk

Smudging in ink

Scattered rocks glued beneath the stagnant night

Embraced by the evening dew arms fold in silent quatrains

Elgin

Soldiers in attendance

As one thousand sails remain furled

Unscathed by wind, sun and rain

Hold still!

until the old fortress

Unmasks its own face

As heaven reveals truths to those who wait

Garden

Some things must change

A Chinese opera Tenor

Some might break?

Elgin and Soldiers

Some will be ignited

All

Others will return

[The voices invoke a miniature sailboat raising up. The garden becomes a snowy landscape.]

Act Two

Scene Two

In Between Worlds Sea God is calling

The song starts with the Sea God humming and calling, and the supernatural being from the garden are mobilizing. People including Xun are departing under the moonlight.

Sea God

Humming MMMMMMM

Female Chanters

She’s told

Supernatural Beings

She is made of

three parts

Female Chanters

Flesh and bone

Wind and currents

Myths from books

Supernatural Beings

She’s taught

She is fixed

with five colors

five tunes

Female Chanters

From the tidiness of the gods

And intangible gifts of the sages

Xun

Freeze,

Beyond

my gaze

Female Chanters

inscriptions bloom in wood

with layers upon layers

purified by showers of reverence

poured by generations of pilgrims

luminous ornaments

profound insight

molded in wooden forms

step by step

one inch, too wide to move

Supernatural Beings

A piece of mortal snowflake

A fragment in between worlds

with flaws and perfection

resonating in a boundless snowscape

Xun

Blurry,

I close my eyes

Female Chanters

continuous waves of avalanches

crowd over miles of ice

push up piles of frozen faces

as ancestral tribes

building their own footprints

cold wind pushing parcels

wrapping miniature family landscapes

held between frost and mist

step by step

remote, sailing far away and far away

Sea God

MMMMMMM

[Sea God hums a sea tune wrapping up the humans. Xun falls sleep in falling snow.]

Interlude

A Creature From Space

The sky zooms out, audience can see from the deep universe there is something flying toward Xun.

Narrator

Beyond the speed of light

A bright rhombus

pierces through the purple sky

surfing in between earth and sun

A thorn of the milky way

rides its orbit from eons ago

slits the atmosphere into a cross section

electrifying the codes

of the thunderbolts and lightning

An unknown ember from the vast void

where dreams begin

dresses in a cape of darkness and morning glow

turning her past and future

from indecisive to decisive

A divine messenger from the kingdom of Plume

leads the ray of a star to earth, where Xin lies.

Then the heavenly fire start

its heat and light

it not only warms her

there is more inside：

conflict, crumble, clash,

and otherworldly revolution

result in this world's evolution

Chanter

The ray of the star

Neither increases nor decreases

It illuminates the real self,

and the wreckage there remains.

Unknown or unaware

It connects speakers and listeners

to their origin, and they stray no more.

Silently and quietly

It blesses all true sounds

with all sentences and poetry.

Act Three

Scene One

Elgin’s Chant

Beijing 1860, the British navy enter the emperor’s encompassing garden, and burning it down.

Soldiers:

Sir,

we found these.

They were the gifts,

from King George III,

to Emperor QianLong,

that Sir Macartney brought to Beijing in 1793.

but apparently they were never opened

and examined.

Elgin:

East,

the other end

of the curvature of earth,

a mythical direction

manifesting belligerence

and faith for centuries,

still to be conquered.

Soldiers:

Tangible,

A gift from the West,

propelled by fire,

A red hot air balloon,

an updated philosophy rises upon the air.

A fiery beast,

with modern science and technology,

cruises through the atmosphere,

a whale of saltless water,

surveying the weather of the future,

mirroring the planet earth,

with a zealous piety burning inside.

Elgin:

Each

generation,

Of the King’s naval power,

Faces

Each generation’s menace and aberrants.

Making sure the blues of the map,

are our blues,

our law and order circumnavigates the globe,

by staying awake, alert, and abiding.

This moment,

an enormous conundrum

stands before me,

sealed with the reckless

confinementism of the east

Soldiers:

For half of a century,

The gifts have been sealed

in twenty wooden trunks,

Marvels,

Astronomical instruments,

compasses

and guns still pointing East.

Elgin/Chanters:

Once upon a time,

A great young Conquerer

ventured to the East

Sparing Pindar’s garden

from his burning torch

For the sake of philosophy

Once upon a time,

An English nobleman,

Sailed to the East,

Seizing marble horses

from the ancient citadel

for his own glory.

What is the purpose

of my Eastern journey?

Chanters in the background:

The bluffing scaly mascots

winding up and down

smoky stone pillars

exhaling fireworks.

A dazed eastern Empire

Lusting for an intangible paradise

addicted and

obsessed

with the symbolism of the past

facing an unfounded future.

Elgin:

The Tangible,

and

The Intangible,

The East

and

the beast

Between

Rules

and

Chaos,

Shouldn’t it,

My journey match

My own destined purpose?

Soldiers:

Looking through endless gates,

searching through a sea of treasures

loads of gold,

silver

and pearls,

Yuan MingYuan,

We opened it!

Pillaging is your penalty!

Elgin/Chanters in the Background:

The overwrought pagodas

whimsy of inexplicable sense.

A golden rosewood throne

Set on paved Byzantine marbles.

A mock naval battle paused in the lake,

scattered and collapsed on the water,

surrounded by weeping willows and lilies,

Reflecting the empty puzzle of a Potemkin village.

Alas!

what an extremely confused place!

Soldiers:

Burning through thousands of chambers

Breaking through countless wooden trunks

waves of heat

flying ashes

grounds evaporating

Yuan MingYuan,

we ignite you!

Flame guarantees your eradication!

Elgin:

Yuan Ming Yuan!

The round round brilliant Garden,

The garden of ten thousand gardens.

Two centuries old, encompassing paradise,

when did you became a circled amusement park?

Your unmanned nature,

incurred your fate.

Your conflagration matches my mission perfectly,

and bestows my triumph.

Ideal

unideal

Like Alexander the Great,

a conqueror

or my father

who squandered

the family honor and fortune,

Quenching and Matching

I need this fire,

for my own frame of mind

As a ritual ablution

For a new philosopher’s glory!

Chanters in the Background:

Quenching and Matching

[Projection: A Chinese opera performer burned together with a stage in the emperor’s garden. ]

Act Three

Scene Two

The Ambient Song Variation #2

Stage is burnt and emptied out, only moonlight is shining into a circle. It sings the ambient song, as the idea of manifest expends to another whole new dimension.

Moonlight shines upon a new cell — Nonverbal Communication

sasasasa

hee hee hee

woo woo woo

yuu yuu yuu

kid of Fire and Ice

Narrator

A pair of Chanters humming

Tenor:

What is traveling?

What is a journey?

It is to wean,

Not to elude.

It is surrender,

Not a grand excursion.

It is repealing a precedent,

Not pursuing a hypothesis.

It is the fusion of fire and ice,

in the earthly world

that births the pure un-gendered child within.

Moonlight mediation

Empty stage with a moonlight reflecting in the center as a supper nature being listens to this new story from this un-gendered youth.

Soprano:

Night

Clear breeze without clouds

Moonlight…

Through empty rounded chamber

what meaning does it have for the child?

She arrives…her arms

She arrives…her steps

She arrives… her voice

She arrives … her gaze

everything quiets as she nears

dazzling,

in three thousand realms

she exists

As the room illuminates

She disappears into the pool of water

Moon reflects its image on it

what meaning does it have for the child,

who watches from the shadows?

A pebble

thrown by the pupil

crosses the window’s edge

wrinkling the pond’s surface

revealing its

three thousand realms

she exists

The Child,

An unrehearsed secret ceremony

completes their fleeting moment

with her silver brilliance

A fearless sacred rite

completes their ephemeral emptiness

with her swirling water sleeves

She was there, her arms moved that way

She was there, her steps moved this way

She was there, her voice moved in all ways

She was there, her gaze remained in me

Alone and unwavering

The selfless and nameless child

who wanders

sees the divine silver brilliance

clumsy and undisguised

consecrating

A solemn innocent rite

communing with the swirling water sleeves

Female Chorus Chinese Kun opera insert:

Feng Qiang Hua Ying

Zi Chong Chong

Supernatural Beings

Truth, as it is

either comes

or goes.

Neither dwells

nor does not dwell

Neither enters

nor exits

Female Chorus

Past and Future

All are there

Different spaces

And forms

All are available

Like earth ocean mountains

Winds and sounds

The Ambient Song Variation #3

Buddhist + Kun opera chant — Nonverbal Communication

sasasasa

hee hee hee

woo woo woo

yuu yuu yuu

ACT Four

Scene One

Nature’s Way

The awareness keeps expending itself, as Moonlight brings audience to Shang Dynasty, three thousand years ago, when pictographic script was first created. It transitions from evening to Dawn.

Master Qi

A millennium of giant roots

Thundering down and down

Ten thousand miles

Toward the heart of the earth

Where the dream begins

Chanters

Unknown

And unseen

Lingering

Eternal game

Master Qi

Clumps of dead grass

Lie on the desert,

Regarding their secrets,

No sooner or later,

Forever, unfolding,

Expounding.

Chanters

Embryonic

Yet still

Between worlds

With one heart,

One mind

Master Qi

Sun eclipse,

Above sand hills,

Wind carries,

Winding valley

He who made

each stroke

Chanters

A dot

A lift

A bend

A curve

An end hook

What goes first

What goes after,

All in heaven’s order

Or in hell’s transit.

What is a journey?

Chanters Checking the Turtle Shell in a tray

…Trigram Trigram Trigram…

… Trammel trammel trammel…

…Trouble trouble trouble…

…Trial trail trail…

…Travel travel travel…

Hee!

Is traveling hard?

It is hard

Is reminiscing hard?

It is hard

Is waving hard?

It is hard

Is smiling hard?

It is hard.

Is tearing hard?

It hard

Is resisting hard?

It is hard

Is hiding hard?

It is hard

Is remembering hard?

It is hard

Is learning hard?

It is hard

Is searching hard?

It is hard

Is missing hard?

It is hard

Is seeing hard?

It is hard

Go on

Go beyond

with one heart

One mind

(Fading)

All-encompassing

Final Lesson

Master Qi

Yu,

You are the third generation of the Qi oracle school.

Today, you start your journey to the Capital, carrying on the teachings and skills I have given you.

Yu bows to Master Qi

Master,

I will do my best to serve the Chief Oracle when I arrive.

Master Qi

Twenty of them,

twenty prisoners of the war from Mei,

will be under your escort as you go.

Take good care of them along the way.

Understood Master.

However

I plan to hunt twenty muntjacs

to replace the prisoners.

[Pause. Master Qi is about to give one last important teaching to Yu, about humanity and the greater nature. ]

Master Qi

You are not an orphan Yu.

You were not picked by me

when you were in a swaddle.

Shocked!

A lightning strike!

Master had told me that I am the child of the snow mountain,

that you found me at the foot of it.

Master Qi

Your parents brought you to the snow mountain

to offer you as a sacrifice

Why?

Master Qi

Because they needed another child to live.

why was I not killed then?

Master Qi

On that same day, a giant muntjac fell into a trap in the village,

What?

Master Qi

Yes, It came

It could serve more people,

so the animal replaced that little baby you.

Yu(tears steaming down from his face, he interrupts)

Master,

why are you telling me this right now?

Master Qi

If tears can make you a true oracle priest,

then why are you learning from me for all these years?

And that divine animal died in vain also.

I don’t know why the tears running down my face.

I guess I want to see my parents, even just for a tiny bit.

Master Qi

Just as I have taught you,

I took these snow-capped mountains,

Clear wind,

Soaring eagles in the blue sky

Capturing their images

As intentions

To carve out symbols

For communications and interpretations

Child,

The heaven,

Earth,

Ghosts

and gods

Are so vast

That a child like you

Is unable to reach

Yet only these hexagram scripts

Connect your destiny to the universe.

You have many tasks on your shoulders

When you go on your journey.

Here is a sealed hexagram that I just divined.

When you come before the Chief Oracle

Submit this to him.

Chanter

He who made

each stroke

A dot

A lift

A bend

A curve

An end hook

What goes first

What goes after,

All in heaven’s order

Or in hell’s transit.

What is a journey?

[Yu takes the 20 girls, all in white, on the road. Cracking lines slowly appear from deep down, like a turtle shell.]

ACT 4

Scene 2

Composing a Word

The vast, bucolic landscape without boundary under the sun.

Female Prisoners

A:Wind cry,

B:Ripples shine,

A:Eagles fly,

B:the light,

A:Trees sigh,

B:and the dust,

A:Muntjacs jump

B:mingle - mangle,

A:Fast and high.

I want to try my calligraphy

as I see nature in front of me,

like a true master.

Female Prisoners

If you are not afraid

First, let me open my chest.

Female Prisoners

If you are not in fear.

Then, let me sharpen my stick.

Female Prisoners

If you are not in doubt.

What should I draw in between heaven and earth?

Female Prisoners

If you are not worried.

I want to draw a bird, with no more than three strokes.

Female Prisoners

Look that!

HMM…

The first stroke looks weak.

Ah!

I am not ready!

I shouldn’t have left him so soon.

Female Prisoners

Your master knows the law,

You are part of his mighty intention.

How about you show me a stroke?

[The Female Chorus dances and sings in Chinese.]

Female Prisoners

Bei mo bei xi,

Sheng li bie.

Yue mo yue xi,

Xin xiang zhi.

[Yu tries to quickly copy the dance movements and the music rhythm for his calligraphy. At the end of the song, he recognizes that he has failed. He is in despair. ]

I don’t know what is missing…

Female Prisoners

Wait for the seasons change,

Wait for the new moon to anchor herself down,

Wait for the stars whispering virtue and eternity,

Wait for the vast currents translate

The languages of the sea.

Yu Sighs

We are about to reach the capital city.

It is time for me to hunt the muntjacs.

ACT 4

Scene 3

The Oracle: Be Free

The capital city center, with a stone altar on high. The country has been in a drought for three years. The message from heaven and earth indicates that a human sacrifice right now is imperative. The Chief Oracle opens the hexagram from Qi and reads solemnly.

Chief Oracle

Yu?

Yes master, I am Yu.

Chief Oracle

How old are you this year?

When I left Master QI I was 15, now I am 18.

Chief Oracle

Are those the 20 prisoners of Mei?

Yes Master. And every one of them is 21 this year.

Chief Oracle

Do they understand what heaven and earth ask, in order to end our drought?

Yu bows

Master, I have hunted 20 muntjacs,

they have more…

to offer to the stars and the moon…

Can we use these animals for a replacement?

Chief Oracle

21.

Sorry? Master?

Chief Oracle / Chanters

The hexagram from your master, it indicates the fire ceremony requests 21 humans. 20 female prisoners of the war, plus one young male.

The chrysalis will open.

Be ready.

Chief Oracle exits.

The Female Prisoners dance and sing in Chinese.

Female Chorus

Bei mo bei xi,

Sheng li bie.

Yue mo yew xi,

Xin Xiang Zhi.

Yu / Female Prisoners

Heaven,

Bei mo bei xi,

Earth,

Sheng li bie.

Ghosts

Yue mo yew xi,

And gods

Xin xiang zhi.

Are so vast…

And divine animals

must not die in vain

and melancholy.

Ah! I want to try one more time my calligraphy.

Female Prisoners

If you are not afraid

First, let me open my chest.

Female Prisoners

If you are not in fear.

Then, let me sharpen my stick.

Female Prisoners

If you are not in doubt.

What should I draw in between heave and earth?

Female Prisoners

If you are not worried.

I want to draw…

Female Prisoners

The strokes are going to be strong this time

Go on

Go beyond

with one heart one mind.

Male Chanters in fading

All - encompassing

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[While the stone alter is starting to burn, the females dance ceremonially around Yu, and Yu realizes his body starts to gain internal strength t this once in life time chance, like a bird flying. After the ceremony finishes, the remains of the burned bodies remain on the altar, and the boy’s ashes form the most vivid image of a flying bird. Snow starts to fall.]

The Ambient Song Variation #4

Ripples carry all the emotions and intentions, toward the edge of the universe — Nonverbal Communication

sasasasa

hee hee hee

woo woo woo

yuu yuu yuu

Finale

Humility as the History Goes On

In a boundless space, the various fragments of the human voices for searching and pondering, unified with the snow.

Chanters

“The Great Emathian Conqueror

Bid Spare The garden of Pindarus,

When temple and tower

Went to the ground.” *

Narrator as the semi Deity

In the long long history,

There are only few revolutionaries

among us,

pushing us forward.

As for the rest,

they are but moss,

upon the ground.

Male Chanters join in with Narrator

These two,

The few

and the Moss

Coexist

Meandering

Beneath

The eternal firmament

Semi-Deity voice expends in the background

Singing in between worlds

Rootless

Flowerless

Nameless

Female Chanters

Seasons change

rocks turn to sand

Rainbow bridges

vanish in clouds

All

But

The stillness is here

This mossy land,

It extends

This is how to open it.

[Chanters unfold the fans in their hands to convey the joy emotion]

This is how to close it

It turn colors

[Chanters fold the fans in their hands to convey the sad emotion]

Epilogue

A Traveler After All

Female Chorus

She started her journey

with a beam of light

and one little voice

Once there was a will,

a boundary,

a past,

—

All an encompassing garden

Is traveling hard?

It is hard

Is reminiscing hard?

It is hard

Is waving hard?

It is hard

Is smiling hard?

It is hard

Is tearing hard?

It is hard

Is swallowing hard?

It is hard

Is remembering hard?

It is hard

Is forgetting hard?

It is hard

Is leaving hard?

It is hard

Is remaining hard?

It is hard

Is learning hard?

It is hard

Is discovering hard?

It is hard

Is missing hard?

It is hard

Is searching hard?

It is hard

Is hiding hard?

it is hard

Is seeing hard?

it is hard

Xun

I have learned and

understood:

travel is an ascent

travel is a ritual

travel is a gift,

travel is love

and memory

Female Chorus

Without definition,

Go on,

Go beyond

With one heart one mind.

The Ambient Song Variation #5

The Happy Moss Song for audience to exist theater

— Nonverbal Communication

sasasasa

hee hee hee

woo woo woo

yuu yuu yuu