Tales of fifty cities

Invisible Cities (1972) is a major work of one of the finest Italian post-war writers Italo Calvion (1923-85). It is a collection of surreal short stories about cities visited by the traveler Marco Polo and is written as a series of dialogues - meditative conversations between Marco Polo and the emperor Kublai Khan. Marco Polo describes to Kublai Khan 55 fantastic cities that he has seen on his travels so that the Emperor can comprehend the sheer size of his own empire.

The issues covered in this collection of stories are visitor versus inhabitant, home vs. non-home, outsider vs. insider, foreign languages vs. mother tongue.

It is called "invisible cities" because it asserts that what makes up a city is not so much its physical structure but the impression it makes on its visitors, the way its inhabitants move within, something unseen that hums between the cracks.

The novel has inspired many artists to travel to those cities and create works based on their own experience and interpretation of the cities. The Taiwan songwriter and poet Summer Lei is one of them. The 39-year-old Lei and her partners will perform a unique interpretation of Invisible Cities at the Oriental Avant-Garde Theater this afternoon and tonight.

"Calvino's Invisible Cities displays perfectly the magical power of a novel. I don't think we can make it visually. So I try to use sound to express my interpretation of it. I try to make a dialogue with it with my music," says Lei.

Lei will read some passages of the novel, accompanied by her music played on a piano, cello, accordion and guitar. The band will also improvise on stage.

The daughter of famed poet, writer and documentary filmmaker Lei Hsiang, Lei was raised in an artistic family, and her love for music saw its genesis in Lei Hsiang's trying to overpower baby Lei's crying with classical music, an anecdote his daughter is fond of re-telling.

In high school, she loved the pioneering Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto's synth-rock music and was fascinated by the avant-garde sounds he created using a synthesizer.

Blending the sounds of the accordion, drum, piano, cello and other string instruments with the electronic, Lei's music is often said to have a half-human, half-artificial sound.

Like many female artists who look inward for inspiration, Lei draws creative material from inner meanings and past experiences. Less productive than the average musician - she releases a new album every three to four years - Lei works by transforming pieces of her life's journey into intimate lyrical diaries.

The Invisible Cities is one of her works exploring life's journey.

2:30 pm and 7:30 pm. Oriental Avant-Garde Theater, Dongdan Santiao, Dongcheng District

东方先锋剧场，东城区东单三条

(China Daily 04/26/2008 page6)