Before-2。

Patient 39

Waiting outside.



The chair-white
The door-white
The floor-kinda white
The window frames-pale cool grey
The gown-white
The wall-white


Patient 39

His face has a touch of rosey colour on the cheek bone, red lips which looks like it has just been put on some lip balm, dark brown eyes, brown eyebrows, black hair. He is wearing everthing against white and any cool, cold colour tones. That makes him ridiculous.



Patient 39 doesn't care, really. Because the doctors are going to be white and this is the only way to let himself different to those monsters.



The machine outside the white door is now showing '39' with a mechanical voice spoken.



Patient 39 is thinking... truth or lie for this meaningless session.


Mmmm....

I Do

Igor Stravinsky。

Les Noces。

Michael Clark。

Merce Cunningham。

Yves Saint Laurent。


This time, I saw some really amazing movements, phrases from the Cunningham technique, and started to appreciate the beauty of it.

Thank you, Mr. Clark.


And to the hero,

Igor Stravinsky.

I don't feel like dancing.

Victoria and Albert Museum-
1. The Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1947-1957.
2. The Art of Lee Miller.
3. Collaborators: UK Design For Performance 2003-2007.

Tate Modern-
1. The World as a Stage.
2. The Unilever Series: Doris Salcedo.

Barbican Centre-
1. Michael Clark Company: Stravinksy Project Part 3. (DONE)
2. Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now.

Southbank Centre- Queen Elizabeth's Hall
Rational Rec Goes Southbank! (Sat 10-Nov-2007)


Future Events:

Sadler's Wells-
Rambert Dance Company: 17-Nov-2007, 24-May-2008
La La La Human Steps: 2-Feb-2008
Pina Bausch: 17-Feb-2008
Netherlands Dans Theatre 1: 02-Apr-2008
Random Dance: 12-Apr-2008
Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan
Phoenix Dance Theatre: 29-Apr-2008
The Ballet Boyz: 10-May-2008
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui-17-May-2008
Dance Now Exchange:China/UK: 13-June-2008
Akram Khan Company: 14-June-2008


Southbank Centre- Queen Elizabeth's Hall-
Henry Oguike Dance Company: 12,13-Mar-2008
(WeiChun Luo is one of the dancers in this company, and she is my good friend, Hooray!)

National Theatre-
Much Ado About Nothing

No, not today.

Someone comes and goes,
as everyone has the same chance to pass me by,
or step into my life.

The sun was shining that day,
But it seemed not to pay any attention today,
even it was just right up there.

Not today,
the sun would not shine here.
He doesn't and nor do you.

And I?

The tears could not shed for any of you today.

No,
not today.

1。

-How do you feel right now?

-Very good.

-How do you feel when you lie to me that you feel very good?

-Even better!

-You need help.

-Yes, Can you please tell me how to feel bad?

-You are feeling bad.

-Err, I don't think so. I am feeling good as I told you.

-You are feeling good just because you are telling a lie.

-So?

-So, just be honest, and you will start to feel bad.

-......

-How are you feeling right now?

-......

-Feeling bad?

-......

-Ok, I will see you next week at the same time. Try to be honest, and tell me how that feels next time I see you.

-......

"l'enfer, c'est les autres"

"Hell is other people."
by Jean-Paul Sartre


And you are my bloody hell.

Getting to know myself-1

After leaving the busy MA course, I finally have some time to be with my own, doing nothing.

Thinking that how much I grow up since last time I really aware of that.

An incident just happened week ago, and affected me quite a lot.

I should be very emotional and upset, but I didn't.

The calm makes me feel creepy, because I can still feel that I want to be like that instead of being so calm.

Therefore, I decided to go on a diet. Try to do something not very good but won't do any serious harm.





Then , I wonder, I am doing this.
If I need to cry or complain, and why shouldn't I?
Is it just because I should be like a grown-up, but not like a child who's moaning about life?
The fact may be as simple as that I could not face the truth and wouldn't want it to bring up the self that I have been hidden for years.
How sad...

Still trying to figure it out.

But for now, I would say that I am still very much like a child, especially dealing with love and relationships. That makes me feel ridiculous. Will get on with the madness and keep my bloody miserable life going on and on.

MingX

UPDATE-Filming Dance

Have absolutly no idea how to use the internet album onto this blog, but it looks fun, in a way, click the cyberlinks if you are interested in something you cannot see at the moment, click on it, and you can see the actual pictures, MAGIC!!! We love internet, we love technology, aren't we!

UPDATE-Costume

Well, I am back!

Gosh, here looks crap!

Dun have internet at the moment, but will keep putting as much as I can.



Mingx

Few Drafts。

The Seagull。

In Anton Chekcov's "The Seagull"

Konstantin Gavrilovich Treplev says the following line.

"Yes, I'm more and more convinced it's not to do with old forms or new forms, it's what someone writes not even thinking about form, but writing what flows freely from his heart."




How moving that is.
It's totally not important it is conventional or pioneer, but to say what our desires are and those we really want to tell.

DECONSTRUCT

The word presents a very strong idea of what I want to do within the final show. Using adapted texts from various plays, performing by actor and dancers, putting video and sound recording along with the relation to costume.
Looking at the nature of performance, we all try to use as much visual language as we could to approach our themes. But for the little backup and mostly work on our own, things could be too ambitious according to the situation we are. As Magda once said to me after my presentation: It’s gonna be a Hollywood production.
Got few question for myself as a push for me to get a little distance from where I am and cautions as well.

Texts: Adapt one novel and two plays to examine the theme of love and sex, especially the way, how people act from our own desire. Hide or show? How much? And how to? Can the conversations in the plays and the words in the novel give us any clue or even one solution or simple answer to it? But there is always something beyond the words and conversations: humanity, which is always the main subject that theatre worked before, is working at the moment and will still work on it in the future. Will deconstruct the texts helping to get us a little bit closer to our wanting?


Dance: A very poetic, abstract and organic form to show our feeling, which simply comes out from bodies. While I am thinking through this piece, dance became the element that seemed to be very beautiful and useful form. But at this stage, the ‘WHY’ of using dance does matter a lot, since I realised it won’t deconstruct anything from the subject conceptually and visually.


Video: An extremely trendy visual language in theatre. This area is the part that I have the most little confidence in the project for both filming and editing scene and skill. Although I do have something in mind that I want to use on stage. But it seems to be the weakest link since it has been considered less than other parts, so I am thinking of taking this off. Now, I will leave this to be subjective and try to work on it more and see where it goes.


Acting and recorded voices: These two parts have the strongest connection. By playing three characters through one performer on stage and interact with the voice’s own characters from whom I record. Bring the subject of gender by role playing and changing. Voice will deconstruct the characters, and performer will so the gender.


I want to use the deconstruction to find a way out and help me getting closer to the theme, and once the action started, it cannot be stopped by anyhow. And since I am de constructing it, I should be braver to do it more, more and more.

Why?

Got a call yesterday from friend.

She told me somthing happened to our friend who is now touring in China with her dance company. During few meals out after performances, one BRITISH guy started making fun of my friend’s English accent, and not just for once but three times. I couldn’t understand what’s so funny about that since she is the only person who understands and speaks Mandarin. Apparently, she ordered and explained the entire menu for them every time they eat out. Cannot think of any thing funny for a person make that kind of action towards other whose first language is not English. And after that, my friend cried in the hotel room for 5 hours.
Very disappointed of this kind of action, really.

I understand as long as there is any difference, there will be different opinions. Races, sex, and so on. Unfortunately, I am now studying in the foreign country and I have told myself that I have to be prepared about this kind of things happen to me, especially I am far more complicated then just language issue. But the question is, should we be treated like this. Shouldn’t we show a little more respect to the people who are in the different situation or status?

Henri Oguike Dance Company。

Check this performance from the website below, my friend is in the company.

http://www.rfh.org.uk/main/events/131859.html

Henri Oguike, one of the most musical choreographers of his generation, returns with his eight-strong troupe to offer a mixed bill of grandly expansive dancing and intuitive choreography. Green in Blue, performed with a live band, is Oguike's first foray into jazz and a new collaboration with saxophonist and composer Iain Ballamy. By contrast, two of Vivaldi's violin concertos breathe fire into Little Red. Inspired by Blake's poem The Tyger, the plucked strings of Steve Martland's score are reflected in the dancers' sinuous and feline movements in Tiger Dancing. Set to the quiet Saharan blues of guitarist Ali Farka Toure, Expression Lines sees Oguike evoke the harsh contrasts of equatorial sand and sky in a reflective solo.



Cheerio!

Certificate Stage Prsentation。

12th Jan 2007
Wimbledon College of Art
Small Seminar Room
Douglas O'connel
Jordan McKenzie
All VLP students


Don't really know the result for mine was good or bad for everyone apart from myself.

The dance piece weren't very nice due to the small space and the different floor that I practiced before. Few mistakes happened, and didn't show the best of me( tho it won't be much more difference from the one I presented anyhow). The oral part wasn't that well which was exactly I expected. Things could not be clear enough throught my language ability, and answers to the question from people seemed to confuse everyone a bit. I would say, I hope I can do it better for next time. Few notes from the questions.

1. Gendre issue, which is quite big and serious problem that I have been thinking the way to explain and give a good reason for it. The inspiration came from "role play" as the idea from Muller's "Quartet". Through one actor, or I would say one body to express the idea of accusations, struggles and the debat of oneself. Now am thinking of let Valmont appears on stage shortly to make all the idea stronger and can be questioned next time. The same body will represent the all the human but not only for any specific gender.

2. End of MY story. I think I sould change 'non-narrative' to somthing less extreme. There will definitely be a narrative of my performance, but compare to the origrinal story and the play from Hampton, it will be closer to the idea of Muller's which he left only the basic relations between characters and abstracted all the plots and events that happened. The narrative will be in between real and surreal.

3. Should be more and more problems. Will do them later on.

Marquise de Merteuil。

A woman who knows how the world in men and women runs when she was a child. She trained herself into a perfect performer in front of everyone. She follows and listens to her desire, shameless and tough. For her, ‘love’ is the emotion from the inferior level, and only losers who will believe in love. That is a word of joke, she does not be bother to say it, or even think of it. In the play and screenplay adopted by Hampton, they all show a very tough feeling of her and has all kinds of scheme to what she wants. But in film ‘Valmont’, Marquise de Merteuil who played by Annette Bening, expresses another possibility of Merteuil: a naïve, lovely and very feminine. The most extraordinary part is how complicated she is, how many masks she has and how she can change them easily. She is like a bottle of well-made red wine which has the best quality. Thousands of flavours in it, and from the very beginning when you taste it until you swallow; those flavours just surprise you in different part of your mouth and throat. What a sensational treat! However, she actually needs someone to love and always be with her desperately, and she thinks she is born to be the avenger for women. The two extreme philosophies made her the Merteuil she is.

Dance Improvising。

At the End of the holiday with working in theatre, finally decided to do some right things: My own project.


Still stick with the very dangerous liaisions between the two female.


Instead of thinking of my "research", I rather say it's my piece. In that case, I will like it more than doing "research". It's quite hard to explain this feeling. Anyway, it's odd that you create somthing to "research" a very acdemic topic by performance. Art is what I want to do, to express, to explain. Very difficult to decribe indeed, cannot be bother to say more.

Back to the piece.


With the help with my friends, we had two short dance concept been choreographed few days ago.

Describing two different mantality from the characters in the novel mentioned in one archive I wrote before.


Things need to done:

I have to find some words translated to express the concepts.

Story Board.

Draft of costume or dance or just research for all the performance.



Special thx to Yun-Hsuan, Wei, Kuo.


You are all fu*king brillian, Hooray!