Beautiful vision

She's being called the mainland's best hope for creating contemporary Chinese music that can transcend borders, but Sa Dingding's music isn't entirely Chinese. And in Sa's mind, there are no borders to rise above. Since winning a CCTV singing contest in 2000, the singer-songwriter's star has been on the ascent. With a voice that mixes Bjork's expressive range with Irish singer-songwriter Enya's ethereal tones - and her ability to sing in Tibetan Sanskrit, Putonghua and other dialects - Sa soon had a mainland album release and became a regular performer with music that combines traditional Chinese folk with electronica and touches of classical and soul. Now signed to an international recording company, she released an album last month, Alive, which is drawing attention worldwide, from Australian viola players to US hip hop artists and jet-setting DJs. Such interest is flattering but the 25-year-old, a devout Buddhist who views songwriting as a kind of spiritual pursuit, says her priority is to stay focused on her creativity. 'I didn't know when I was making the album that it would be marketed in all these different countries,' says Sa, a graduate of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. 'I wasn't thinking about the commercial concerns.' Her mind was on her grand-mother, with whom she lived until she was six, and cites as the person with the greatest impact on her life. The part-Mongolian Sa recalls her grandmother's tales about how people from different places live under the same sky. 'What that taught me is that people have a lot more in common than you might think,' says Sa, who was born in Shandong but grew up in Beijing. 'There are no borders. Language might divide us, but it can't prevent us from understanding each other.' Sa, who also learned about spirituality from her grandmother, became further entranced by Buddhism after travels to Tibet and Yunnan province. Having picked up Sanskrit while studying at the conservatory, she began learning Tibetan and the language of local religious ceremonies. Much has been made of Sa's language skills, partly because she creates her own in songs such as Lagu Lagu and Oldster by Xilin River on her new album (the Chinese title translates as 'the life of 10,000 things'). But the lyrics are designed to convey emotions rather than express specific ideas. 'I want people to use their imagination to picture what I was experiencing when I was trying to create the song,' Sa says. 'It's not something I'm trying to express line by line, but more of a scene I'm trying to create.' The idea was partly inspired by the way children make themselves understood, she says, recalling a flight when she overheard a child asking a cabin attendant for a glass of water. 'You didn't know what she was saying - small kids are difficult to understand unless you're their mum or dad. But everyone grasped her meaning - what she wanted.' Lagu Lagu, for example, was written to express her feelings towards her grandmother. Yet she's found that listeners from England to Japan can understand the meaning behind the song although they might find the lyrics incomprehensible. 'Some say it even reminds them of their grandmother. That was surprising to me,' she says. It's hard to label her music as Chinese when she claims broad musical influences including Deep Forest, Peter Gabriel and Bjork. 'All languages and types of music - religious music or dance music - have their own formulas,' says Sa, who plays the zheng, a Chinese zither, the Mongolian horse-head fiddle, Chinese drum and gong. 'But when I'm creating music it doesn't really matter what genre it's from.' Sa's alternative sound has attracted the interest of producers such as Guy Sigsworth, who worked with Madonna and Bjork, and Tom Nichols, who collaborated with Kylie Minogue and Tom Jones. Already, Full Phatt, who remixed Outkast, Usher and Christina Aguilera, have remixed the title track from Sa's album. Her vocals also appear on the debut album by Australian viola player Sally Cooper and will next be heard on top DJ Paul Oakenfold's new release scheduled for next year. Having heard her music, he sent her a demo track from his album, inviting ideas. Oakenfold liked the vocals she envisioned and set up the collaboration while in Shanghai earlier this summer. 'To make a successful collaboration, no matter where the producer comes from, it's important to maintain my originality,' she says. Sa may be working with hip hop star Akon next. She got to know the Senegalese-American artist, whose releases have been topping Billboard charts, while in London for a recording and they plan to stay in contact. 'As long as it fits with my style,' she says, 'I think it could work. Nowadays music is so much about completing things with technology. But music should be able to express itself and that's what I'm trying to achieve.' Unruffled by the hype, Sa says that among the most important achievements in her short career is how well her music has been received by Buddhist communities when she toured Asia. '[My music is] very different from the way Buddhists have traditionally expressed their beliefs in music, so they've had quite a reaction,' she says. 'Having them tell me that they like it - that they feel something when they hear it - that's very encouraging.'