The following video, produced by Sexy Beijing and posted on Danwei, is part of Abigail Washburn’s Afterquake project, in which she creates music with children from the earthquake-affected areas of Sichuan:
Afterquake: “Sala” Video from Sexy Beijing TV on Vimeo.
One year after the May 2008 Sichuan Earthquake in China, the Afterquake music project has created music with quake survivors to raise money and awareness for the ongoing reconstruction.
This song is a traditional Qiang minority song called “Sala”, but all the kids in Wenchuan seem to know it whether they are Han, Qiang or from another ethnic group. They also all seem to know the dance. The kids called it a guo zhuang (锅庄) song which means that you dance around a fire while singing it.
The vocals are by the girl in the video named Luo Shuang (罗霜), a 14 year old first year middle school student from Wenchuan County. She is Han ethnicity. Her mother appears at the end of the video, on the site where they are rebuilding their house, which was destroyed in the earthquake. The accompanying music was produced by Abigail Washburn and Dave Liang, of the Shanghai Restoration Project. The video was shot and edited by Luke Mines.
