A Sonic Déjà Vu
It all begins with an idea.
An immersive piano-and-visual journey through Sinophone Imagination, debuting at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, produced by Sinouveau Arts Collective Ltd. in collaboration with Shangyu Li. This innovative, interdisciplinary project brings the visual arts into real-time dialogue with live piano performance.
Inspired by Zhuangzi's Daoist allegory The Dream of the Butterfly, the conceptual design invites audiences into a dreamlike space where sound and image intertwine. It explores the liminal zone between reality and illusion, unveiling the emotions, memories, and cultural resonances of the subconscious.
Drawing on Zhuangzi’s philosophical parable, the performance poses the timeless question: Was it Zhuangzi who dreamed he was a butterfly, or the butterfly who dreamed it was Zhuangzi? A Sonic Déjà Vu becomes a space to reflect on the shifting boundary between dream and waking life, and on the role of art as a cultural mediator between the two.