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Sa Dingding (, born Zhou Peng () on 27 December 1983) is a Chinese folk singer and songwriter. She is of mixed
Han Chinese The Han Chinese, alternatively the Han people, are an East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Greater China. With a global population of over 1.4 billion, the Han Chinese are the list of contemporary ethnic groups, world's la ...
and
Mongol Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China (Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family of M ...
ancestry, and sings in languages including
Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...
, English,
Standard Tibetan Lhasa Tibetan or Standard Tibetan is a standardized dialect of Tibetan spoken by the people of Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. It is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region. In the traditional "three-branched" ...
, as well as an imaginary self-created language to evoke emotions in her songs. She also plays traditional instruments such as the
guzheng The zheng (), or guzheng (), is a Chinese List of Chinese musical instruments#Plucked, plucked zither. The modern guzheng commonly has 21, 25, or 26 strings, is long, and is tuned in a Major scale, major pentatonic scale. It has a large, reson ...
and
morin khuur The ''morin khuur'' (), also known as the horsehead fiddle, is a traditional Mongolian bowed stringed instrument. It is one of the most important musical instruments of the Mongol people, and is considered a symbol of the nation of Mongolia. ...
.


Early life and education

Sa was born in
Pingdingshan Pingdingshan ( zh, s=平顶山, t=平頂山, p=Píngdǐngshān), also known as Eagle City ( zh, s=鹰城, p=Yīngchéng, t=鷹城), is a prefecture-level city in central Henan province, China. It had 4,904,701 inhabitants at the 2010 census who ...
, Henan, on 27 December 1983. She became interested in
Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
and taught herself Tibetan and Sanskrit. Later, at 17, she moved to Beijing, to study music at the People's Liberation Army Academy of Art.


Career

At age 18, she released her first album entitled ''Dong Ba La'' under her birth name Zhou Peng, gaining her the title of China's Best Dance Music Singer. In 2006, "Holy Incense" was used as the theme song for the movie ''Prince of the Himalayas'', directed by Sherwood Hu. In mid-2007, she released ''Alive'', available physically and as a download in many countries. The Hong Kong release of the album featured a DVD containing music videos, a remix of "Alive", making of footage and a Chinese version of "Mama Tian Na", not featured on the album. In 2008, at the age of 25, she won the
BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music The BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music was an award given to world music artists between 2002 and 2008, sponsored by BBC Radio 3. The award was thought up by '' fRoots'' magazine's editor Ian Anderson, inspired by the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. U ...
for the Asia-Pacific region, earning herself the chance to perform at the Royal Albert Hall to a Western audience. In the same year, she also released a two track single called " Qin Shang". Dingding composed a song with Éric Mouquet of
Deep Forest Deep Forest is a French music project that originally began as a duo consisting of Michel Sanchez (musician), Michel Sanchez and Éric Mouquet. They compose a style of world music, sometimes called ethnic electronica, mixing ethnic with electro ...
called "Won't Be Long" to raise funds for disaster relief after the
2008 Sichuan earthquake An earthquake occurred in the province of Sichuan, China at 14:28:01 China Standard Time on May 12, 2008. Measuring at 8.0 (7.9–8.3 ), the earthquake's epicenter was located boxing the compass, west-northwest of Chengdu, the provincial ...
. The song was made available on Mouquet's Deep-Projects website. Mouquet and Dingding have collaborated on an album ''Deep China''. Dingding has appeared at the
World of Music, Arts and Dance WOMAD ( ; World of Music, Arts and Dance) is an international arts festival. The central aim of WOMAD is to celebrate the world's many forms of music, arts and dance. History WOMAD was founded in 1980 by English rock musician Peter Gabriel, w ...
and the Harrogate International Festivals in the UK. On 6 October 2008, her official English website was updated with information about a European tour, going from 7 to 17 November, making stops in Germany, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Las Palmas, Australia and New Zealand. For Chinese composer He Xuntian's 2008 album, ''
Tathāgata Tathāgata () is a Pali and Sanskrit word used in ancient India for a person who has attained the highest religious goal. Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, used it when referring to himself or other past Buddhas in the Pāli Canon. Like ...
,'' Dingding contributed the vocals for the second track, entitled "Dátǎjiādá" (). Her January 2010 album was ''Harmony'' (), with nine songs in Chinese. The album also contains three remixes of the title track, one by Paul Oakenfold. In 2018, Dingding starred in the hit fantasy romance drama '' Ashes of Love'', portraying the Immortal Yuanji.


Discography

;Albums *''Dong Ba La'' () (2001) * ''Alive'' () – Universal Music, Wrasse Records (2007) * ''Harmony'' () (2010) * ''The Coming Ones'' () (2012) *''Wonderland'' () (Remix Album) (2014) *''The Butterfly Dream'' () (2015) ;Singles *"Qin Shang" () – Wrasse Records (2008) *"Tiandi Ji"/"Ha Ha Li Li" () –
Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as Universal Music Group or Universal Music) is a Netherlands, Dutch–United States, American multinational Music industry, music corporation under Law of the Netherlands, ...
(2009) ;Soundtracks *Theme song of '' 14 Blades'' () *"Upwards to the Moon" (左手指月) (2018) – '' Ashes of Love'' *"Unsullied" (不染) (2018) – '' Ashes of Love'' *"When Meeting You" (当遇见你) (2020) – '' Skate into Love'' *"If You Come Back" (如若归来) (2021) – '' The Long Ballad'' *"As You Wish" (2022) – '' The Blue Whisper''


Filmography


Television series


References


External links


Official UK website

Official Weibo
(Chinese)
Official blog
(Chinese)
Official Japanese website
(Japanese)
Fans Page on Facebook
(English)


Interviews


"Freedom is the first thing I learnt from Music"
Laptoprockers, December 2008
Sa Dingding interview
from ''Global Rhythm'' magazine, August 2008


News articles



''
CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
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"Made in China: the singer poised to sweep the globe"
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The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
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Sa Ding Ding, the Asian Bjork.
''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
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''The Guardian'', Friday March 28, 2008



Biography at Livedoor.com
(Japanese)
"Why Sa Dingding has China in her hand"
''
The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
'', 18 July 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:Sa, Dingding Living people Chinese folk singers Chinese women singer-songwriters Mandarin-language singers Sanskrit-language singers Tibetan-language singers People's Liberation Army Arts College alumni Performers of Buddhist music Singers from Henan Wrasse Records artists Chinese people of Mongolian descent 21st-century Chinese women singers Year of birth missing (living people) Chinese Buddhists