The artists who have come together for this US tour were originally members of the Yunnan Ethnic Culture Preservation Institute. The tour marks the beginning of their new journey; the newly established organization, Yunnan Yuansheng Music and Dance Studio, serves as a base to support these culture bearers in their mission to preserve and sustain the traditions of Yunnan ethnic cultures in the communities that created them.

  Director

Liu Xiaojin was born in Tianjin, China, and received her BA degree in Chinese Literature from the Yunnan University in 1982. Since 1984 she has been a director for documentary films for the Yunnan Television Station; she has been producing independent films since 1990 and worked with China Central Television in Beijing in 1995. She was an Asian Cultural Council grantee in 2000 and spent seven months in New York City studying American documentary films. Her documentary credits include "Chronicles of the Minority Institute," screened at the 2003 Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival and "Mask: A Field Report on Masked Performance," shown at the Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival at the American Museum of Natural History in 2003.

  Artists:

Yi

Ah Jiawen holds the title of "Yunnan Master Folk Artist" granted by the Yunnan Provincial Government. He is 66 years old, and lives in a farming village in Shiping County. He was never formally trained in the musical arts of his village, instead learning by hearing older players and his general love for his traditional music. He later went on to become a locally famous folk musician and maker of musical instruments. He previously served as a teacher at the Yunnan Ethnic Culture Preservation Institute, and has traveled to Beijing, Changchun, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Taiwan to perform. He is an expert of the four-string Moon Guitar melodies of the Sandao Hong Yi ethnic group, and has been referred to as the foremost instrumentalist of Southern Yunnan.

Cha Yongying was a student at the Yunnan Ethnic Culture Preservation Institute. She can sing and dance many of the Weishan Yi country stomp rhythms, most of which she learned from Luo Fengxue. In addition, she has learned the Sandao Hong Tobacco Box Dance, the songs of the Huayao Yi, the Spirit Drum of the Luchun Yi and Sandao Hong Yi embroidery. She acquired the majority of these skills while at the Yunnan Ethnic Culture Preservation Institute. She has performed in Beijing, Changchun, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Japan. She currently resides in her home village in Weishan County, where she is famous for her artistic talents. She often teaches classes on ethnic music at the Yunnan Art Institute School of Music as a guest lecturer.

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