Sijie Wang

In Hindu and Buddhist mythology, Kinnara is a half man, half horse body (male version) or half man, half bird body (Kinnari, female version) celestial being who has strong association with music and dance and we can see many different variations of Kinnaras in south east countries like Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia etc, however after Buddhism spread to East Asia, we can see many cave carvings in China especially the famous DunHuang Cave in Gansu province depicts a female upper body with a bird lower body often times playing music instruments and dancing around the Buddha, this mythical creature is called Kalavinka, Kalavinka is a essentially a bird that has a beautiful voice and is from the Himalayas. Some theory says Kinnara is also from the Himalayas. Is Kalavinka also a version of Kinnara with east asian influences? This production will go down the history to explore the origin of the many connection points between the 2.