Mountains and Seas – Song of Today 山海 · 今日之歌, presented by artists Xie Rong, Daniel York Loh and Beibei Wang, commissioned by and co-produced with Kakilang, is at Omnibus Theatre, Clapham from Tuesday 2 to Saturday 6 December. Tickets are available here. We sat down with Xie Rong to discuss their upcoming performance.
Mountains and Seas – Song of Today draws from the ancient Classic of Mountains and Seas but speaks directly to contemporary issues like climate crisis and rising fascism. What drew you to this text as a foundation for such urgent, modern themes?
This work was born from grief and urgency. Over the past two years, we have witnessed the relentless violence in Gaza, the rise of fascism, and the chants of “send them back” echoing across the UK, the US, and many other Western countries. When Dr. Refaat Alareer was killed with his family, his poem If I Must Die stayed with me. His words reminded me when reality offers no hope we loosen our flesh, only ideas remain.
In that silence, I found myself returning to the Classic of Mountains and Seas (⼭海 经) — a 4th-century BCE text of mythical creatures, mountains, seas, and a vision where all beings exist together. Its ancient imagination offered me a way to hold the brokenness of today.
I began sharing these stories with my friend Daniel York Loh, who shaped them into a script both poetic and fiercely political. For centuries, the Classic of Mountains and Seas has been a national treasure and even an international inspiration, sparking countless artistic interpretations and reflections on our relationship with the environment. Yet rarely has it been reimagined in a way that grows directly from its mythological roots into something so urgently contemporary.
Both my practice and Daniel’s writing grow out of brutal personal truth, autobiography, and social activism. In this project, we found strength in supporting one another, transforming that shared ground into what has now become the Song of Today.
Your practice often uses the body as canvas and medium, and here you appear on stage as both painter and performer. How does live painting expand or transform the audience’s experience of the mythic and political worlds you’re exploring?
I am an action artist — an art form that emerged in the post-war 1960s in the US and Japan. Fluxus is a powerful example, where musicians and actors turned the street itself into a stage.
When audiences enter a black box theatre to encounter my work, they are confronted with my untreated body — carrying honesty, vulnerability, and urgency.
Live painting introduces risk: the stage, the atmosphere, even the performers’ bodies and costumes transform in real time. Nothing is fixed; each performance is a one-off event.
This instability shifts how myth is experienced. Myth is often romanticised or aestheticised, but live painting renders it fragile, unstable, and political. I use elements such as black-and-white animation, a tennis racket, or a head torch — references to protest and social struggle — so that stage props become charged reminders of urgent realities.
The work also resonates with art-historical traditions — Butoh dance, expressionist painting, Viennese body art — practices where the body itself becomes the medium and the tool. As an action artist, performance artist, and painter, my role is to inspire collaborators to shed technique and return to raw human emotion — something often overshadowed in theatre, but essential to the urgency of this work.
The piece blends poetry, film, AI animation, music, dance, and visual art. As director and designer, how did you approach shaping such a wide range of disciplines into a single coherent theatrical experience?
I understand this piece could be described as cross-disciplinary or mixed media, but to me it feels more like an extended body. My practice has always been rooted in personal narrative, where body, voice, and gesture are central. As Joseph Beuys said, “Art is the healing power for our society.”
This production is built around three elements: text, sound, and visual. I am grateful for Daniel’s powerful script, Beibei’s dynamic soundscape, the energy of two fantastic dancers, and the presence of Jennifer Lim, a strong actor. My body becomes part of this collaborative community — yet each of us carries our own history, heritage, and struggles.
At the heart of Daniel’s text is the search for an ancient tune. That search became the thread that binds us together: each artist visualises this tune through their own strength, and it is our honesty and commitment that allow these many forms to cohere into one theatrical experience.
As the Chinese artist Xubin once said, “Art is using all artistic forms and skills to deliver a message that reaches people’s hearts.” That is exactly what this project aspires to do.
Much of your work, including Calligraphy on Face and Hair Painting, is rooted in ecofeminism and Eastern philosophy. How do those influences continue to inform the way you think about performance as resistance and healing in this production?
One ecofeminist artist I interviewed, Betsy Damon, once told me that when she realised water is the foundation of everything, she devoted her life to it. She founded Keepers of the Waters and promised herself to only create art that could be absorbed back into the environment, and to only teach art as activism. That conviction has stayed with me deeply.
For me, ecofeminism and queer ecology share a common ground: compassion for all species and living beings. This connects closely with Eastern philosophy, where emptiness, non-action, and the adaptability of water are central. Together, they shape how I see performance not only as resistance, but also as healing — a way of caring for the world even in its brokenness.
That current runs through this production. From the first workshop I led with Daniel, to our early R&D, and most recently our filming in the forests and rivers of Dorking, we have worked by following intuition — trusting the moment, the energy, and the presence.
Some of Daniel’s script is painfully self-pitying and satirical, yet by performing and witnessing each other, we heal together as a small community. Beyond the stage, I will also lead three outreach workshops alongside the five-day theatre run. At Omnibus Theatre, a gallery wall will display portraits of each performer and their own artworks — offering audiences another layer of exchange and healing, as both givers and receivers.
We will also hold a tea ceremony on the first two days. This ritual is another way of drawing the audience into the world of Mountains and Seas – Song of Today — where, for one evening, they can step into a space of honest sharing and meet the real person behind the mythic creature.
Mountains and Seas – Song of Today is being co-produced with Kakilang, an organisation committed to platforming Southeast and East Asian voices. How important is it to you to situate your work within that community, and what conversations do you hope it sparks among audiences in London?
I first began working with Kakilang in 2019, when they commissioned and produced my first theatre presentation, Echo, at Soho Theatre. That was such an important moment for me. As a live artist and action artist, there is often a clear line drawn between our practices and the world of theatre, dramaturgy, and stage presentation. But my autobiographical show was embraced and valued by Kakilang — then known as Chinese Arts Now.
Over the past six years I have continued to collaborate with them, leading two workshops and even an online sharing during Covid. I also became friends with their then director, An-Ting, with whom I collaborated on two projects.
For me, organisations such as Kakilang are essential. They remind us that we are not alone — artistically or culturally. Our Mountains and Seas – Song of Today team itself brings together talents from Singapore, Malaysia, and China, reflecting the diversity of voices within our community. We are also working with a Yi craft studio on garments, whose indigenous practice of indigo dyeing carries us back to deep cultural roots. Like water, indigo flows across borders — it belongs to no one nation, but to the shared landscape of mountains and seas. By situating Mountains and Seas – Song of Today within this context, I hope to spark conversations in London about the richness of Southeast and East Asian voices — and about how our stories speak not only from personal and cultural identity, but also to urgent global concerns.