歌渡山川

Traveling Through Songs is a simple yet experimental cultural exchange project, unfolds as an intimate encounter between cultures, carried by two melodies that have travelled across time, geography, and memory. What begins as a simple act—three women gathering around two songs—becomes a meditation on how popular culture moves through the world, how it is inherited, and how it transforms when held by new voices.

Popular songs often feel universal, yet they are rooted in the specific histories that shaped them. A melody that evokes longing in one culture may arrive in another as an unfamiliar echo. A lyric that once held a nation together may be heard elsewhere as a distant story. In this space of difference, the project listens for what can be shared, and what emerges in the act of exchange.

Artist Chi-yung Wong brings together three performers from three cultural lineages:

Dorothea Mildenberger, a German actress;

Zhenhong Song, a Chinese pianist;

and Valeria Iacovino, an Italian pianist.

Together, they inhabit two iconic songs: the German wartime ballad “Lili Marleen”and the Chinese classic “May We All Be Blessed with Longevity” (但願人長久), adapted from Su Shi’s Song‑dynasty poem on distance, reunion, and the shared moon.

In this unfolding dialogue:

• Dorothea Mildenberger guides Zhenhong Song through the emotional terrain of “Lili Marleen”, a song that once drifted across military camps and radio waves, carrying the weight of longing, separation, and fragile hope.

• Zhenhong Song teaches Dorothea Mildenberger to sing “May We All Be Blessed with Longevity”, a melody woven from poetry that has comforted generations with its wish for enduring connection across distance.

• Valeria Iacovino listens, observes, and learns both pieces, becoming a witness to the subtle transformations that occur when music crosses cultural thresholds.

Through teaching and learning, the artists step into each other’s cultural memories. Their voices trace the contours of histories they did not live, yet can momentarily inhabit. The songs become bridges—resonant, fragile, and profoundly human.

Traveling Through Songs is not a reenactment of the past, but an exploration of how the past continues to breathe through music. It asks how popular culture travels, how it is carried by individuals, and how it reshapes itself in new hands. In the shared act of singing, the artists create a small, luminous space of exchange—where understanding grows through breath, rhythm, and the generosity of listening.