Lotus - soprano

Lotus' - mezzo-soprano

Dragonfly - mezzo soprano

Violoncello

Piano

​

Double Sided is trying to illustrate the dilemma within an individual’s state of mind. The three characters, Lotus, Lotus’ and Dragonfly, represent three ways of thinking. Lotus and Lotus’ are in fact the two contrasting mental states within the same individual. While Lotus projects a strong self-confidence, Lotus’ tries to understand herself through a series of struggles, doubts, questions, and uncertainties. To Dragonfly, Lotus’s struggle looks simply unnecessary. The idea comes from the reality in our daily life, that sometimes we cannot control ourselves to act like someone else. The scene takes place in a drizzling pond. The text of Double-Sided uses selections from a Chinese poem A Small Pond by Yang Wan-li and a classical prose On the Love of Lotus by Zhou Dun-yi.

​

《愛蓮說》 周敦頤 （節錄）

On the Love of Lotus by Zhou Dun-yi (Excerpt) 

​

水陸草木之花，可愛者甚蕃。 自李唐來，世人盛愛牡丹；
Of the flowers across land and water, many are worthy of admiration.

Ever since the Tang Dynasty, people have been very much into peonies.

​

予獨愛蓮之出淤泥而不染，濯清漣而不妖，中通外直，不蔓不枝。

As for me, I am fond of the lotus, rising from silt but unsullied, washed in clear water but not vain, hollow within and straight without, neither clambering nor sprouting branches.

 

<小池>楊萬里 

A Small Pond by Yang Wan-li

 

泉眼無聲惜細流， 

From fountainheads water streaks out thin and quiet.

 

樹陰照水愛晴柔。 

Soft and Sunny are trees reflected in the pond.

 

小荷才露尖尖角， 

A slim lotus leaf, not yet unfurled, scarcely appears.

 

早有蜻蜓立上頭。

When on its pointed tip a dragonfly is alighted.