Singing across the canyon

Seven Lushui singers effortlessly perform baishi, a powerful, high-pitched melody, that in the Lisu language means "speak freely, sing freely".

The performers explain that, as a local saying goes, "You can't live without salt, you can't live without song". Historically, people living on opposite mountain slopes would sing across the Nujiang Grand Canyon to communicate.

In 1996, a group of Lisu farmers traveled to the provincial capital Kunming for a film festival, where they translated the theme song of the American film Waterloo Bridge into the Lisu language and performed it as an unaccompanied four-part chorus, bringing the house down.

In the following years, their polyphonic singing continued to impress musicians at the China International Chorus Festival with its complex but pure harmonies. In 2006, the Lisu polyphonic chorus was inscribed on China's first national intangible cultural heritage list.