Speaking Chinese is a new major work by San Francisco’s Epiphany Productions Sonic Dance Theatre, co-sponsored by the Davis Humanities Institute, with the Departments of East Asian Studies, Asian American Studies, Music, and Women and Gender Studies, in collaboration with a renowned team of Chinese and American artists. Speaking Chinese is a dance journey inspired by Love in a Fallen City, a 1943 novella by Chinese-American writer Zhang Ailing and featuring the orchestral and chamber music of Shanghai composer Zhu Jianer. Combining text, movement, image, and sound this interdisciplinary work leads us through Ailing’s tales of love, longing and the shifting of endlessly treacherous shoals of family life. Through the dramaturgy by Barry Plews and translations and interpretations by Hu He, a story of love unfolds in the midst of war and in spite of the strict Chinese traditions of the 1940’s. The production includes Choreography and Direction by Kim Epifano with dancers Hou Honglan (National Ballet of China, Beijing) and C. Derrick Jones (Catch Me Bird Dance Theater, Los Angeles). Stage designs are by artists from the Shanghai Animation Film Studio and costume designs by Chu Hong Sheng & Zhu Jin You