every dollar is a soldier/with money you're a dragon

Juxtaposing the harsh experiences of the impoverished first Chinese settlers in London with the opulent world of privileged, but nevertheless bitter, émigré William Waldorf Astor, An-Ting 安婷 and Daniel York Loh create a powerful lament on the immigrant experience with spoken word and electronic music, taking in myriad reflections on the need for money and status and the right to call ‘home’ a land that can either reject or embrace you.

An-Ting’s score is a soaring combination of unique ‘Asia beats’, lonesome tack piano, jaunty waltz and elegiac erhu and pipa melody which transports us effortlessly across entire continents, oceans, winter prairies, into the dark holds of ships, the haunting magnificence of Astor’s very own Xanadu of Two Temple Place, smoke-drenched Victoriana London, even smokier opium dens and the burgeoning concrete mountain range of Manhattan across centuries and all the way to the present while acclaimed classical actor Daniel York Loh narrates his own epic text described by The Upcoming as ‘striking… his delivery of words portraying an array of emotions that perfectly complement the swell from the music…’