This year is the 26th year since DV8 founded. They are well-known by their astonishment dancing style. It is difficult to say there's an consistent feature in their dance piece. Because of the issue they tried to investigate is really broad. However, the audience is always impressed by their sharp comment and subversion public's themes. 

Strange Fish, 1992

Llyod Newson is the director of the DV8, he is always known by his daring and bluntly. Due to his major is psychology, his work is always discovering the human mind in straighfoward. We can see his work is challenging the society with controversial issues. Llyod is known by his 'weird' as well. He never promote himself and never let people take his photo. 

The Cost of Living, 2003. 

 Alway have an abnormal feeling when seeing they dance. 

 

The latest piece Can We Talk About This is talking about the forbidden conversation in daily life. The topic is discussing the Islamic  law, terrorism and the problem that the world is facing. 

 

I think theatre is always a mirror of the society. But it is really difficult to practice it. When I engaging the theatre as my career, I always feel I live in the peripheral of the society. Somehow I feel like living in a hermit attitude because we are doing the things public never know and never do. I really admire DV8 they having the courage to reflect the society within a aesthetic position. 

 

This time they have a world tour and they will go to Taiwan in April. Some of my friend will go to see their performance. I really curios about their feedback. Because there are only fifty to sixty thousands Muslim population (0.2% of the total) live in Taiwan. We don't really understand the racist problem and Islamic activities. All of the feature we know about the Western and Islam are from TV and newspaper. I think 'Can We Talk About This' will be a new experience for Taiwanese audiences.

Wenders did a great interpretation to Pina in her documentry film. The poetic images and body with beautiful landscape. Loads of montage make the film smooth and full with imagination. Feeling regret to her death and wondering how Wenders will shoot the film if Pina is still alive? Because some of the report said that the movie was supposed to film with Pina Bausch herself. I think it should be totally different. It wont look like which is mourning for someone at least. 

This is another film 'Blush'(2005) which I think is very good and with the same style as 'Pina'. Film by Wim Vandekeybus the artistic director from the Ultima Vez. Surprisingly, Blush got only 6.4 rating on IMDB, however Pina got 7.5 and 'The Cost of living' (2004, Made by DV8) got 7.6. It is a big gap. Feel sad. 

Blush (2005) 

 

The Cost of Living (2004)

 

To Ryuichi Sakamoto 

Ryuchi seems to besride mainstream, avant-garde and film music effortelssly and never for one second does he feel like a jack of all trades. More like a master

David Bowie (Musician,2010)

 

This blog post should be written since few months ago. I saw the Ryuichi Sakamoto Concert in Southbank in last autumn. Sakamoto is one of the most important contemporary musician from Japan. He is my favorite pianist as well. Sakamoto born in 1952. He started his career with  Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi for assembling the Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). The Japanese pioneer tech-pop representative YMO which is the most important icon in the 1980s. Their tricky form make great influence on Japanese techno music which is in very different style with european. 

YMO - Rydeen

Sakamoto works as a movie actor as well. He played a role in the movie Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence in 1983. Danny Bowie and Sakamoto was in a male love relationship in this movie. There's no female character shown in the movie. The homosexuality theme brought the controversy to the society. In 1987, Sakamoto won the Oscar and Grammy award for being the music composer of the movie Last Emperor. He played a role in this movie too.

YMO(1999)

 

At the end of the concert, Sakamato played his new song and announced he will has a serial concert for Japanese after Tohoko earthquake and tsunami in 2012. People live on seismic zone threatened by earthquake in daily life. I can still recall the day when Jiji earthquake (Sep 21,1999), live under the shadow of that spectacle. 

Facing with the disasters such as earthquakes, plague and war. People tell themselves with ruthless: this is the part of history, human being as the dust spread at the track of history. If they didn't force themselves to think like, people would crush by harsh reality. If can't tell themselves like that, they couldn't even live with enough strength. On the other hand, we feel real sympathy and empathy. Protecting by the distance with the TV screen. Feeling apologize, mournful and want to help each other. 

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Solitude

 

Today (March 11) is an anniversary of the Tohoko earthquake and tsunami. Wish the people ,who suffered from the disaster can recover and carry on their life.  

 

 

Under a Certain Little Star   

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity. 

My apologies to necessity in case I'm mistaken. 

Don't be angry, happiness, that I take you for my own. 

May the dead forgive me that their memory's but a flicker. 

My apologies to time for the quantity of world overlooked per second. 

My apologies to an old love for treating a new one as the first. 

Forgive me, far-off wars, for carrying my flowers home. 

Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger. 

My apologies for the minuet record, to those calling out from the abyss. 

My apologies to those in train stations for sleeping soundly at five in the morning. 

Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing sometimes. 

Pardon me, deserts, for not rushing in with a spoonful of water. 

And you, O hawk, the same bird for years in the same cage, 

staring, motionless, always at the same spot, 

absolve me even if you happen to be stuffed. 

My apologies to the tree felled for four table legs. 

My apologies to large questions for small answers. 

Truth, do not pay me too much attention. 

Solemnity, be magnanimous toward me. 

Bear with me, O mystery of being, for pulling threads from your veil. 

Soul, don't blame me that I've got you so seldom. 

My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere. 

My apologies to all for not knowing how to be every man and woman. 

I know that as long as I live nothing can excuse me, 

since I am my own obstacle. 

Do not hold it against me, O speech, that I borrow weighty words, 

and then labor to make them light. 

 

 

Lab: This is not a rehearsal.

We joined the L.E.M Jacques Lecoq workshop instructed by Ali Darke in the last two days. Ali introduced us the Jacques Lecoq’s method of performing at the first beginning. The workshop is about the body, movement and space. ‘The experiments focus on our perceptions of space using our bodies as a tool for experiential discovery. The focus and source of expression coming from our own physical, felt experience rather than an intellectual or observed perception.’ (From the workshop introduction.)

Jacques Lecoq’s began gymnastics at seventeen. He described the body movement through the gymnastic as being purely abstract. Lecoq’s teaching method is encourage the actors find the most suitable way for theirs performing. Mask is an important tool in his training.

His training involved an emphasis on masks, starting with the neutral mask. The aim was that the neutral mask can aid an awareness of physical mannerisms as they get greatly emphasised to an audience whilst wearing the mask. Once a state of neutral was achieved, he would move on to work with larval masks and then half masks, gradually working towards the smallest mask in his repertoire: the clown's red nose. –wikipedia

neutral, larval, half and red nose mask

I found it is interesting that Ali said: Complete neutral is dead. She described the performer’s status on the stage. In the past, I always considered the ‘abstract’ or the ‘poetic’ is tends to be neutral. Manifestation of the position may undermine the abstract appearance. I am not sure what Ali’s meaning of dead. But I think it is a suggestion of returning to zero. It gave me another way to think about performance especially in the dynamic and the neutral.  

‘The idea of using a neutral mask to train actors was first introduced by Jacques Copeau at The Theatre du Vieux Columbier. Copeau started with hoods, moved to a blank form and then discovered the need for a mask that represented neutrality. His students carried this idea away from his school. It was Jacques Lecoq along with the Italian sculptor Sartori who fully developed the methods and the neutral mask itself for actor training.

The neutral mask is a mask of calm. It is without expression and represents a being that has no past and no thought of the future. It exists only in the present. The mask is used to help the actor understand and develop a heightened sense of discovery, awareness of the space, a greater presence and a profound awareness of self. It is an extraordinary tool for actor training.’-theatre-mask.com

Another thing is Ali use a lot of theatre games and exercise to make us observe what our bodies looked or exist in the space. She used strings and sticks to link bodies together. When the bodies linked together by these simple media, people can feel the bodies aggregate shaped as bigger or smaller. And the aggregate moving by so many different wills. We can draw how we feel with the charcoal on the paper. The drawing part in a performing course never happened in my past education   

My shitty drawing. But still feel very happy because it is may first time using charcoal. And found charcoal has many different using of strokes. 

It is a shame that my past cognitive of Jacques Lecoq’s training is only about clowns and red nose. I found that Ariane Mnouchkine (Théâtre du Soleil) and Simon McBurney (Complicite) and loads of important artist studied in the L'École Internationale de Théâtre before. It influence many ways of contemporary performance system.  
 

 

David Shrigley: Brain Activity is the current exhibition in Hayward Gallery. First time I saw his work was in the Roundhouse last summer. A naked huge giant walked around the space. His work is very simple compared with others artwork. His dark humor amused many of audiences. Shringley used simple stroke in his work likes the caricature in the newspaper. I tried to look at other audiences’ face today. Their face is so interesting when they looked at Shringley’s work. The facial expressions are very unreadable. Sometimes people laughed and after become serious. I think he use the words combine with his illustration always make people a knowing smile. However, the challenge to the political correctness is underneath his work.

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Fever 103° is a script written by Cho, Man-Nung. The director Baboo Liao and his company Shakespears’ Wild Sister Group (SWSG) made the script into play in 2008. The premiere was in Taipei.  In 2009, Baboo and SWSG invited by the Council for Cultural Affairs (Taiwan) and the theatre La condition des soies to the Avignon Festival 2009.  Usually, Avignon OFF is quite free for each different theatre/dance company. It is the biggest fringe festival in the world. The normal procedure is doing a proposal for the programme, then register to the organizers. The programme will select by the local theatre. There are more than 300 theatre will open during the festival period. More than 1,000 show will performed at the time. It is a very big business because many of the most important programmer, curator and director will gather together at the time. Due to some politic and finance issue, the group come from Taiwan will attend the festival behalf the name of Taiwan, not with the independent group. I joined SWSG for Fever 103° at the time for the lighting design of the tour version. It is because the tour version is easier and simpler.

There are two main roles in Fever 103°. Sylvia Plath was act by Hsu, Yen-Ling who is one of the best actresses in Taiwan now. Another character is a man who is a metaphor for Plath’s daddy, husband and lover. The man does not speak in the play. He used many of body and physical movement to support the performance. It is a quite functional character on the stage.

The working method between Taiwan and France is very different. In Taiwan, the designer joins the rehearsal. The designer need a people called master electricity (ME). ME’s work is like the technical director, but works for lighting department. ME need to arrange the issue of loading the light, connect with the lighting crews and the rental for the lighting instrument.  However, if there is no money for hiring a ME, the designer needs to get everything done. Everything based on budget. Some of the designer quite likes to do this; it is because the designer can charge a big deal of commission when they rent the instrument from the instrument company. In France, the only thing designer need to do is hand in the lighting plot (hanging list, hook up list).  In addition, the theatre will in charge every affair what the ME needs to do. It means the designer can concentrate on design and communicate with the director and other designers. Budget control is still important but not annoying anymore.

The workflow for the lighting designer in the theatre is

1.Mark the space.

2.Load the light.

3.Focus the lighting instrument.

4.Patch the dimmer to the channel.

5.Cue setting.

6.Cue to Cue.

7.Tech rehearsal.

 8.Dress rehearsal.

9.Final rehearsal.

10.Performance.

I think it takes another blog to explain all of the steps.

The lighing plots(Toulouse 12'. Rethel, Chaumont and Troyes 11'. Avignon 09'.)

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Communicating with the technicians.

Loading the lighting instruments.

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Focusing. Usually the technicians will do this, but I cannot speak Franch. Using English sometimes make things complicate. Therefore, I did this by myself. However, it is wrong, because of the view from the tower and auditorium is very different. 

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The previous show data. If I am using the same type of controller (lighting console) we can keep the data from the previous show. Therefore, I do not need to redo every scene (cue). All I need to do is fix the former scene (cue).

Stage display(Avignon 09')

It is my final work for Fever 103°. The next station will be in Taipei. It will be a reproduce version. I wont be able to go back to join the rehearsal. The Paris performance canceled because of the negotiation with the producer was fail. However, one of the theatre owners is trying to engage the official agent for the Fever 103° oversea version.  Anyway, it means they will use the local members for the group composing. I feel appreciate and pleasant to work with many good and talented people. I am so lucky!

Sylvia Plath is an American poet and novelist born in 1932. She published her first poem when she was 8. She is a sensitive person with perfectionist personality. She obtained her scholarship from Smith College when she was 18. In 1955, Plath graduated with the highest honor from Smith College. While she graduated, Plath had created more than 400 poems already. After that, Plath entered into the University of Cambridge with her outstanding talent. And she met the British poet Ted Hughes at the time. Hughes later became her husband.

Her life seems perfectly owning everything. But there is always fulfilled with gloomy in her work. The death of her father when she was 8 made this influence. She tried to suicide by the lager quantities of hypnotics first time (almost success) in her third year of college. After that, Plath received electroshock and psychiatric treatment. In 1958, the short-lived marriage ended. She gassed herself in her kitchen in London in 1963. There are two statements of her suicide. One of the reasons is because Hughes’ affairs caused her depression when their first child was born. This affair accelerates their divorce. She decided to kill herself because of the pregnancy of Hughes’ second wife. The other is her influenza. There is the coldest winter in 1963 last century. Plath caught a serious cold at the time. The intense fever causes her a tremendous emotion and illusion with mental disease. Ted Hughes has claimed that ‘Plath’s death is complicate and inevitable.’ However, It is difficult that not making any connection with their failure relationship. Hughes destroyed her diary three year before her die that caused her death a mystery.

Sylvia Plath(1932-1963)

 

‘Pure? What does it mean? The tongues of hell Are dull, dull as the triple 

Tongues of dull, fat Cerebus Who wheezes at the gate. Incapable Of licking clean.

The aguey tendon, the sin, the sin. The tinder cries. The indelible smell’

Selected from Fever 103° by Sylvia Plath

 

The Bell of Jar is Plath’s autobiographical novel. The protagonist of the novel is Plath herself. The movie Sylvia (2003) is based on her story. Gwyneth Paltrow acted as Sylvia Plath in this movie. It is a shame that the movie focus much of romantic story and the gender issue but without Plath’s strong personality. The character is quite flat in this movie. In 2008, the theatre company Shakespeare and His Wild Sister Group made a stage version of Sylvia Plath based on the script Fever 103° written by Chou, Man-Nung. They have a tour to the Avignon Festival in 2009, and I was the lighting designer for the tour version. Chou, Man-Nung used attractive words based on Plath’s poems. The stage was quite simple used much poetic language. I was fascinated by Man-Nung’s words. The script and Plath’s story affect me in many ways. The stage performance got a lot of respond from the audiences. There are about 50 performances in these years. The new session tour will be held in spring 2012 in France and Taipei.

movie: Sylvia (2003)

The first time I heard about Plath is in my fourth year of university. My pupils and I was trying to attend a video poem competition held in Taipei. I found Plath’s work is really visualizable. At the time, I do not know anything about her life. And it is quite interesting while we were doing the promotion in the street in Avignon, People do not know who is Sylvia Plath. But they can understand after we told them she was Ted Hughues’ wife. I think people concerned about their story much more then her works.

Remixxxx Hsu Yenling x Sylvia Plath

Troyes, France 2011

 

Yesterday, I was working with two friends for the film Shanhaijing. This film is a teaser for Shou-Wei, Tsai’s MA projector. Shanhajin is an ancient myth recorded strange monster and bizarre fairy tale in China. Some scholars consider it’s not only a myth but also a description for ancient geography. Shanhaijin in Chinese means a book with mountains and seas. Tsai’s idea is use London City as background for the myth. The building and Thames can be the mountain and the sea. He is still looking for what kind of creature could live within the city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shan_Hai_Jing

Shanhaijing Wikipedia

The creature and monster in the myth Shanhaijing 1

 

I am really interested when Tsai told me his idea. This teaser is only a small part of his work. We spent only 8 hours from filming to masterdown everything and export it. We tried to use a low-contrast and saturation with high-brightness look for the teaser like Japanese movie. I think the quality is quite nice thought there are lots of details need to be adjusted.

The creature and monster in the myth Shanhaijing 2

It is happiness we don’t need highly professional instruments and a whole filmmaking company to do this in nowadays. In facts, only one DSLR and two MBP are required. And three of us are not in the filmmaking background. The video recording for DSLR and the personalized editing software are the greatest invention in the last 10 years. We spend few time and money, we can do a film which not so bad.

Teaser Shanhaijing

 

 

 

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  Until Sigmund Freud published his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality in 1905, children were often regarded as asexual, having no sexuality until later development. Freud was one of the first researchers to seriously study child sexuality. While his ideas, such as psychosexual development and the Oedipus complex, have been rejected, acknowledging the existence of child sexuality was a significant change. Children are naturally curious about their bodies and sexual functions — they wonder where babies come from, they notice anatomical differences between males and females, and many engage in genital play or masturbation. Child sex play includes exhibiting or inspecting the genitals. Many children take part in some sex play, typically with siblings or friends. Sex play with others usually decreases as children go through their elementary school years, yet they still may possess romantic interest in their peers. Curiosity levels remain high during these years, escalating in puberty (roughly the teenage years) when the main surge in sexual interest occurs. –wikipedia

 

   Aware of sex is not a transient changing not an answer got overnight, but a gradual process. You may know more about it after first sex experience or first orgasm. In my case, sex is still a vague notion filled many impulses and unconscious (or only body conscious).  Freud’s theory gives the answer about childhood sexuality in affirmative but I don't know much and never discuss with others about childhood sexuality before. There are some artist who used childhood sexuality / sexuality as an expression very well.

   Jan Fabre is a Belgium artist/theatre director/choreographer, whose talent is comprehensive.  His works often use many organ, blood and semen to convey his idea in visually.His performance is introduced as a 'real-time performance' or 'living-installation'

  

    I was in the auditorium when his work ‘orgy of tolerance' played in Avignon Festival 2009.  I don’t like it. It’s because I totally don’t know what are they talking about. There was a subtitle, but in French! Another reason is that I don’t like he use the ‘intense sex’ as a tool to suggest the meaning of anti capitalism (know it from the journal). That’s too dynamic for me. Can you imagine seeing a naked man standing on the stage, and his penis was hitting by a rolling wheel from an upside down bicycle. That’s impressive because you can only feel PAIN!

  And there is Sally Mann who is an American photographer. She is famous with taking b/w pictures for her children and these photos bring me an anonymous emotion that the fancy image suggests decay and innocence.

Pictures come from Sally's website and others blog

I feel guility when I look at these pictures. Can innocence and sexuality (Child) both exist in the same time?

 

   The third one is the Czech director Jan Švankmajer. He is an animate director, who is really famous with his stop motion animation. Combining with true-person and puppet. At that time, this technique was considered with a highly difficulty. He is regarded as a representative of surrealism as well.

  

   The movie Alice was shoot in 1988, which is a work Jan pays tribute to Lewis Carroll (writer of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland). This movie clip gives me a different view from the original story. Although the original story is surreal, the movie Alice is much look like a nightmare. Many of the symbols bring a violence imagination. What is true world and what is the adventure world for children? What is the difference between these two worlds? What is the cross of the threshold? 

   Jan Švankmajer’s movie was forbidden in Czech. In 1972 the communist authorities banned him from making films, and many of his later films were banned. He was almost unknown in the West until the early 1980s.