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Wanfang performing on stage.
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Singer, actress and radio host, Taiwan-based Wanfang is making full use of her wide range of talents, combining music, drama and poetry in her Singing in My Room tour, which premiered in Beijing Friday and will hit Guangzhou today.
As the second production of the Music Lost & Found series from bi-weekly magazine City Pictorial, Singing in My Room caused a sensation in Beijing and thrilled audiences Sunday and Monday in Shanghai.
Wanfang is using the tour to explore new ways of performance and expression, rather than following the mainstream route of simply releasing albums and singing.
During her Beijing show, held at fringe venue Nine Theaters, over 500 fans keenly followed her movements and sang along with every song. Dressed plainly in black and white with bare feet and just a guitar and accordion on stage, Wanfang linked her music with monologues on serious topics including global warming and homosexuality and had light-hearted conversations with the audience.
After the performance, she told the Global Times that although she had visited Beijing many times, it was her first performance in the capital and also her first on the Chinese mainland.
When asked whether she intends to hold a larger-scale concert in Beijing, Wanfang said that she preferred studio theaters and unusual spaces. "I always perform in small theaters back in Taiwan that enable me to better interact with the audience and provide them with a personal and intimate experience. To me, even this 500-capacity venue is too large."
Starting her career as a singer in 1990, it has been seven years since Wanfang released her last album The Luck of Falling in Love. However, she insisted that not having released a new album does not necessarily mean that she has quit singing.
"You do not have to be a singer to sing," Wanfang commented. She said that she has been singing since childhood, so the title of "singer" was just her identity for a certain period of time.
"After being in the music industry for a decade, I suddenly realized that being a singer confined me from singing for my own sake. It took me some time to rediscover the pure joy and original essence of singing."
To pursue this joy, Wanfang experimented with various methods of combining performance arts with singing, including her Singing in My Room tour. She said that she would continue to allow her music career to be guided by her instincts, but "with no intention to make a fortune."
This lack of material pursuit is another way in which Wanfang differentiates herself from other entertainers in Taiwan, where making a profit is often the most important aim.
"To me, singing, as well as acting which is now also an important part of my life, is more about communicating with audiences and delivering messages."
She said that it is OK if others in the music business find her weird, as people always have different points of view. "Majority and minority are definitions based on the environment. We can be main-stream in some circles while 'weird' in others' eyes."
Wanfang also acknowledged that being a radio host has opened her eyes to different forms of expression and music presentation, while enriching her imagination and designs for life.
"The music modes that we encounter when we are growing up are more or less the same, but since being a radio host, I have spoken with many musicians outside the so-called pop music circle."
She said that the people she has met recently have helped her better understand the truth about music and singing and that only a true refl ection of a solid life can reach audiences' inner soul and create sound communication and connections.
Wangfang added that to her, singing, acting and poetry are merely channels to communicate and deliver messages. "Do not put us on a pedestal. We are just messengers," she said.
(Global Times August 5, 2009)
