Witness the magic of Mantawoman – a mesmerising yangqin player, singer-songwriter, and performer from San Francisco – in YANG QUEEN, a psychedelic musical about the power of self-acceptance.
Crystallizing twenty years of performance experience into one kaleidoscopic show, this musical extravaganza dazzles with epic instrumentals, romantic songs, comedic lip-syncs, and trippy visuals. In two acts across ninety minutes, we see Mantawoman reckon with the trials of being a young artist and adult: indecision, heartbreak, identity crisis. Propelled by an inner voice, Mantawoman voyages from fracture and grief towards integration and ecstasy, ultimately learning the importance of living in one's truest form. Along the way, they invite audience members to sing with them and reflect on their own odysseys of transformation.
Praised by Yo-Yo Ma as "courageous, passionate, truth-seeking," Mantawoman rose to prominence as one of the world's top yangqin players. The yangqin (pronounced "yahng-cheen") is a Chinese percussive string instrument with 144 steel strings that the player strikes with bamboo mallets, emitting bright, iridescent tones. The yangqin takes center stage in this sonic adventure, serving as the interface through which Mantawoman teleports us across the seascape of the human heart.
YANG QUEEN was developed in collaboration with Emma Henry Wolf, Tangram, LSO St Luke's and the Southbank Centre Studio residency in 2023, with support from the Jerwood New Work Fund.
Runtime is 90-minutes with a 20-minute interval.
ABOUT MANTAWOMAN
Mantawoman 漫她我梦 (b. 1994) is a musician, singer-songwriter and performer from San Francisco. They specialise in yangqin 扬琴, a Chinese percussive string instrument.
Mantawoman treats the yangqin as an interface for exploring magical dimensions of queer and transcultural experience. They are interested in plurality and the nature of change. Their conceptual, genre-fluid performances blend Chinese music, new commissions, original songs and improvisation, with splashes of theatre and video art.
Mantawoman (b. Reylon Yount) is the first yangqin player to feature on a Grammy Award-winning album (Sing Me Home, 2016) and the first person from North America to compete professionally in an international yangqin competition (silver prize, Baotou 2014). An avid recording artist, they feature on the soundtracks of Marvel's Shang Chi, Netflix's 1899, and the Sundance Award-winning animated short, Reneepoptosis. Their playing has garnered millions of views online.
After graduating from Harvard College in 2016, Mantawoman won a Marshall Scholarship and moved to England, where they co-founded the transnational music collective, Tangram. For their singular songwriting and performance practice, Mantawoman has received support from numerous organisations, including Arts Council England, SOAS University of London, LSO St Luke's, Royal Philharmonic Society, City Music Foundation, Help Musicians UK, nonclassical, Britten Pears Arts, Jerwood Arts, and Southbank Centre.
Mantawoman has collaborated with a wide range of artists, including Caroline Polachek, Alex Ho, Rhiannon Giddens, Vân-Ánh Võ, Christopher Myers, Johnny Gandelsman, and Yo-Yo Ma.