Autumn Tsai holds dual degrees in performance and literature. She explored performance and performing arts while pursuing MA Performance Making at Goldsmiths, UoL, and deepened her knowledge of Western medieval literatures during her studies at the department of English Language and Literature, Fu Jen Catholic University, Taipei, Taiwan. During her studies, She gained insights into diverse English studies cultures as she travelled across the UK, Taiwan, Italy, and Germany.

Literature lives in her own changing life between the East and the West. Her artistic productions delve into identity questions, post-colonization, orientalism/racism, heritage, and diaspora. Her literary works are often written in a tapestry of different languages, evolving into various art forms. 

With semiotic analysis and historical research as her research foundation, and improvisation as her creative methodology, Autumn’s works blend academic research, artistic research, and artistic production, connecting the western medieval culture with her own presence in the here and now.

Her creative material allows her to connect fields, and as a communicator between fields, her story will continue to be told across space and time. 

Sanmao, known by her English name Echo, born in 1943, was a Taiwanese writer who spent half of her life living in the Sahara desert with her Spanish husband, José. During the post-war period when travels were more restricted and people were less open to different cultures, this young Asian woman left her footprints all over Europe. Stories of her travels and her life in the desert are penned down in simple but mesmerizing words published in the press. To the young female Taiwanese students whose school lives are restricted within a conservative educational system, she is a symbol of a free and bold female being who follows her own voice in search of her own definition of life and love. 

We never learn the full nature of Echo, this earliest and the most important Taiwanese female literary travel writer. A part of her is seen through her words for her faithful Taiwanese and Chinese readers, but a larger part of her is left with the people in the Western Sahara (occupied by Spain at the time); José, the love of her life; the childhood trauma that suspended her in time; and her familiars in the West. 

What are the faces of Echo? 

Echo’s earlier writings reveal a colorful and illustrated inner world. Later writings from the desert are plain and simple, and those from the time before her eventual suicide leave readers in sorrow for her loss of José. Her language is always light and soft, as though she is only a part of the surroundings that forms her life instead of the leading actress herself; within her words, there is always a kind of unrestricted flow. However, changes in her linguistic style can only show us a portion of what these experiences may have meant to her. 

Through the lenses separating Echo and her surroundings, we view a set of photographs of ourselves. What has stayed the same and what has left us in the time following Echo’s travels? Perhaps our attraction towards Echo speaks something about ourselves, and, as we peek into her life, we are peeking into our own lives between the East and the West — a Taiwanese writer and percussionist who have spent time in Europe, and an American composer who has spent time in Europe and Asia.

To present our answers as a communication through time and space, we weave our own stories into selected texts of Sanmao. Our methodology for the text includes elements of improvisation and word play to form a script consisting of Echo’s own voice in combination with her surroundings. The languages from Sanmao’s lived environments – and our own – are used to form the script. The electronics and the vocalizations of the percussionist create a web of multiple story lines and narratives. Instruments that serve the musicality of the story are both ones constructed for the piece, as well as objects that are alluded to in Echo’s work.

Autumn Yunting Tsai
January 2022

Work Samples