The Midori Question

I have all these thoughts but they are not so organised. However, I also know that I promised to post here regularly. So in the meantime, here is a letter I wrote to the (No)rwegian Wood cast as a sort of stop-gap. I'm going to write this one up properly when I have time. 談開太極,用中文表達會更貼切, 可惜寫中文這麼慢!

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Dear cast,

I just had a minor revelation this morning. Adrian has been trying to make you do tai chi!

Josephine was expressing how it seems that Adrian and I give completely different feedback when it comes to the speed of the performance. For example, in the dress run where Adrian was very satisfied that you were taking time to sense every moment, I was going, "Well.... that's ok, but you need to pay attention to the tension and drive of each scene."

Actually, while on the surface there appears to be contradiction, I'd like to think actually it's a question of process. The more I think about it, the more I realise that Adrian and I are actually addressing the same question. Let me use tai chi as an analogy.

At its heart, tai chi is a martial art. Behind every move is an intention to defend or attack. However, the main practice of tai chi is a slow movement form. 太極的修練表面上就是有這樣矛盾. 為何要慢練? 憑這個速度去打交, 一早比人打死了!

In tai chi, the purpose of making you practice that slowly is so that you can take time to understand the process of each movement. To taste the nuance of the weight shift, the transfer of energy from earth through center through the hand to the heel of your palm where you will 發勁 . And in the same way, good acting, like tai chi, is about the actor being able to feel the nuances of each action and reaction. And that's why Adrian was continuously asking you to take time, take time. It's so that you could be conscious of every detail.

Now the tricky thing is, this process is a very grounded, deliberate practice. The challenge we had in this play is that we actually have characters who are much younger, more unstable than we generally are in life. Walter needed to make the shift from his usual grounded self to become a 19 year old. Haruka needed to make that shift to be someone more fragile and unstable. And Midori is, by nature, a very pure form of wild energy.

And so when I was saying "Wynne, great stuff" and Adrian said, "That energy was too high.. there was not enough detail.." what I was responding to was actually Wynne's energy. There's a very clear colour of Midori for me, that Wynne has in a very raw form.

Now in the process of grounding Wynne, I felt that -- argh, this is like Midori after she has been dating Toru for years, when she's sort of absorbed a Toru rhythm! So for a few days I was really pondering over this contradiction about training actors to be grounded and the fact that we actually want some characters to be ungrounded. Unlike film, where you just shoot and capture that moment, theatre seems to demand a more deliberate, consistent process.

How then, to swing between the two poles and enjoy the freefalling moments in between?

It was really on Sunday's afternoon show that I began to see the fruit of this slow, deliberate process. Wynne really nailed her performance in that show. The two things came into one in a character that was clearly Midori energy and rhythm, but with an aware actor.

Yes, this is what both Adrian and I have been looking for. Just like in tai chi, after months of slow practice you come to understand the movement, you are then able to transfer the energy very fast in the right path, because you know what you are doing. So on the occasion you do fight, intention and form are one. 拍! They will fall dead on the spot (or cough up blood exactly twelve hours after you hit them.)

In many ways, the show is still young for me, just at the age of 17 or 19. We have just begun to discover many things. Certainly, it's taught me a lot about the process of acting.

It's been a real privilege for me to see everyone take their acting to the next level. So thank you, Adrian, for giving us this playground to play in. Arigatou gozaimasu.

love,
Hofan.

Wander: A Human Landscape 遊蕩於人生風景

A group of us were walking back from dinner to rehearsal near Nam Cheong, when I asked Rachel (our director for the inclusive dance project between Symbiotic Dance and Blue-Eyed Soul Dance Company) how she found the city.

Rachel had to think about it. “Well, I find Hong Kong to be a very tolerant place.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. Tolerance and generosity are not really the first things that comes to mind when I think of our bustling metropolis. But then, Hong Kong is home. It can be a bit hard to tell from the inside. 旁觀者清, 當局者迷.

“Well, for example, just now at the restaurant [and we were with 國華, a wheelchair buddy], they were happy to set a table outdoors for us. In England they might have thought it to be a lot of hassle, made a lot of fuss.”

Much later, when I was struggling over the two lines of reflection I had to hand in for the program notes when things finally clicked into place. The world is our mirror: Rachel finds Hong Kong to be a friendly place because she is a generous person with a wide-open heart. And when I say wide-open, I mean flood-gate wide. It’s a sort of life-force that sweeps aside all jet-lag, embraces the struggle of working in a different language, and says yes, yes, YES!

Looking back, it’s pretty incredible to realise what the group has managed to achieve in a period of twelve days. It makes me realise how if the director is clear about what she is doing, and is backed up by a solid team (Arnim + Tids)…. kapow! Anything is possible.

“For this jump to work,” says Rachel to Vinci, “You have to fly past Maru. If you imagine jumping into Maru’s arms, you’re going to be heavy. But if you go past Maru, you’ll be much lighter.” She demonstrates, slamming into 丸仔, who catches her in a spin.

Watching them at work, I realize that this actually can be a much more general principle. If I’d stopped – as I did the first couple of days – to consider how I should be pacing myself: yesterday’s rehearsal, today’s tai chi with 師傅, back to rehearsal, teaching, parent-teacher conferences; rehearsal for (No)rwegian Wood, a school tour performance, not to mention the ongoing 高鐵 protest… I would be exhausted. (Actually, looking at the list, I have every right to be exhausted.)

But the trick is to let all of that go. Prepare well, stay present, and embrace the company of people you are working with. Let that give you energy.

This was particularly easy with this ensemble, because we had people who was so direct with their affections. Wai Yin would grasp my hand and touch it to their cheek; 蘇 will clutch at me in his strong hands and not let me go to dinner. May will whisper (at two words a minute), “Can you help me get my bag?”… and then give us souvenirs of pottery and Chinese knots that she has made with her feet…

This project brought out many beautiful things in all of us. For myself, it was a wonderful combination of things I love doing: assistant teaching, listening, dancing.

Photos by Arnim Friess.
> Read another review of the show here - 共容是共生，共融則是你強我弱的權力遊戲

反覆在當下 (太極與戲劇 i)

排練 —— 英文為 rehearsal, 有再聽一次 (re-hear)的含意；法文則為 repetition, 有反覆多次的意思。但我還是比較喜歡波蘭語的 próba。在字源上說，próba（排練）和 spróbować（嘗試）同根，反映一種重視劇場實驗探索的精神。反觀中文，「排練」一詞仿佛有安排、整理的意味。難道我們中國人相信好的戲劇是有規有矩、有條不紊的?

反覆練習的意義

起初到法國留學, 第一次聽到 repetition 這個詞時, 就覺得很奇怪. 難道在法國人眼中，排練只是不斷地「重複」演繹? 若是如此，哪裏有改進的可能？

不過，近年開始學太極，就發現不斷「重複」一些指定動作也不一定是件事。練習太極是非常奇怪的一回事，反反覆覆都是練一個套路。當然, 江南上套路千變萬化，一世都學不盡。但真正練功求精不求多, 重點是從反覆的練習過程中, 深化自己對套路的領悟。

正因為每清晨都是耍同一套動作, 才突現出一天與一天狀態的不同：這幾天睡眠不足,身體狀態差; 那個星期有演出, 精神難以集中。覺醒之後，方學到怎樣放下雜念，追求活在當下的「無極」和身心靈的純淨澄明。

對於演員, 尤其是舞台演員,「無極」的修煉是非學不可的。舞台演員不僅渴求一場無懈可擊的演出，而是每晚都要發揮出應有水平。反覆排練就是要讓演員鍛煉出穩定水準。無論白天與情人分手或和老板爭吵，晚上的表演都不容有失。演員的工作就是尋找劇場的當下。一齣豐富的劇，反複排練/演出是一個精彩的過程。演員會不斷發現一句台詞能夠包含的意思和可能性有多千變萬化，而不禁發出讚歎. 。

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畫家畢卡索(Pablo Picasso)就曾經說過： 「糟的藝術家只會複製，好的藝術家則是偷取」.讀過 Anne Bogart 的 A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre (Routledge, 2001) 的朋友會認到本週的靈感是從她偷取的.

A very rude audience

When we started to get interviews for the current show, I got quite baffled by the general emphasis on this being a deaf production. Nine out of ten questions addressed to me were questions like, “What misunderstandings, problems or revelations have arisen from working as a hearing person in a deaf ensemble?”

These types of questions basically make me want to shake the reporter and say, Number 1, I think it is healthy to have disagreements in the creative process; and number 2, I’ve always thought of them as actors first and deaf second.

“Do you mean that you think it’s the same working with deaf people as hearing people?”

“No,” I’d say, “Of course it isn’t the same.” (Argh! Shake-shake-shake-shake-shake! Don't reduce what I am trying to say!)

Argh. I mean, obviously there are challenges of language, but it’s no more than working with people of different cultures. I guess I’ve been in so many situations (Linnan, Poland, Paris) where I didn’t speak the language very well that I’ve just learnt how to get around this and figure out ways to express what I want to say with simple words and the most direct means possible. Similarly, in Burnt Mango we work with people of different nationalities/mother tongues, so we’re pretty much used to translating and making sure that everyone gets included in the conversation.

But today I could really feel a difference between the fact that I could hear and the rest of the ensemble couldn’t. I can now finally answer the question, “What’s the most challenging thing you have found working as the only hearing person in a deaf ensemble?”

Our show opened today to a theatre of secondary school students. The whole theatre was packed, and when we turned on the UV lights, you could see the whole audience glow from a sea white uniforms. The students were an unruly bunch, somewhat hyper, and took to commenting (loudly) on the show while we were performing.

I was furious. The students obviously thought that because the performers couldn’t hear them, it was ok for them to talk during the performance. Little did they know that I could hear…

On the level of acting, it was interesting for me to see what I could do to adjust. Acting is, after all, a projection of energy and a manipulation of the audience’s attention. As the first person starting, for example, I took more time than usual and made my movements slower and more deliberate in order to dampen berserk energy. (Ideally, if I was the one calling the shots backstage, I would have refused to start until the audience was silent – something I do all the time as a teacher with unruly classes. I’ve learnt that waiting them out is usually more effective than yelling at them to be quiet, because when you set the norm of being calm.)

Actually, it felt a bit surreal to hear all those comments, and to know that I was the only one in the ensemble that could hear them. I really had to push myself to focus upon the reality of the play; and failing that, the next best thing is to channel my anger into my performance. So if my volcanoes were more explosive than usual, or my raptor more vicious, so much the better. This sort of scenario is a definite challenge to my professionalism (to deliver one’s best no matter how sucky the audience is), but on the other hand, it also crossed my mind: if theatre is a dialogue, what is the purpose of conversing if the other party is not ready to listen? I wonder if it had been my own production, if I would have had the guts to stop the show and say to the students, “Ok, this is out of bounds. We need some basic respect here.”

Of course, historically theatre audiences were pretty uncivilized. Even in Shakespeare’s time the pit of the Globe Theatre was full of rabble who would eat and chat while the show was going on, and throw things at the performers if they didn't like the show. So the norm of a polite, attentive audience is something that developed over time. Still, I’m pretty sure that the students would not have been so blatant if it had been a hearing ensemble, and that – for me, makes their behavior downright rude.

I was thinking, (unfortunately, during the performance, which almost made me miss a cue), how I would like to sit down and have a proper dialogue with the students. For example, one of the comments I heard a student say quite loudly during the scene where the dinosaurs were wiped out was「又死啊.. 死過又返生」(Not another death... just wait, they’re going to come to life again… ) . I actually think that this is an interesting observation, that throughout history things keep getting eaten and wiped out, and new life takes its place. I would have loved to address that student and say, “Well the question is, do you think we’re going to wipe ourselves out?”

But of course, the Q&A was not really a forum for proper dialogue, and for some reason, I also found it hard to speak. It felt much more natural to speak sign language, and be part of the ensemble.
I better get some rest. Tomorrow is another performance.

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「無言天地」劇團:《創世記》
Theatre of Silence's "Creation" has two student shows, but members of the public can join us on:
Saturday 26 Sept (8pm), Sunday 27 Sept (3pm) 2009
Ngau Chi Wan Civic Center
(I'm expecting the audience of the public performance to be more mature.)

The inconvenient actor

I'm afraid that I'm a rather inconvenient actor. I have a tendency to think in director mode, which means that I tend to challenge things that ruffle my theatrical instincts.

Right now I’m working on a piece with Theatre of Silence (無言天地劇團). As the only hearing actress in a hearing-impaired ensemble, I’ve had to come up with a number of creative ways to make myself heard. When my rudimentary sign language fails me, I’ll bring in video clips or resort to e-mailing the directors. Sometimes we have a translator, but for the most part I’m on my own.

Sometimes I question: am I overstepping my boundaries as an actor ?
In the heat of creation, I wonder: Should I just shut up and do? Why am I bothering to fight for this?

The answer is really: because I can’t bear to see shoddy work. If we’re going to bring this on tour to the UK and Brazil, it even becomes an ethical issue. If we’re going to burn fossil fuels to fly this piece there, I have a responsibility (more than ever) to make this piece worth seeing.

Thankfully, the directors and ensemble have been patient and open to ideas from this rather vocal actress. It’s been a wonderful experience working with this group. There is so much laughter in rehearsals.

As we near production week, I notice myself turning off my director’s mind in order to commit to my job as an actor. There’s a delicious sense of freedom in doing this. (Actually, I need to do this. Acting isn’t something that comes naturally to me, and I realize that I’m pretty bad at unison work. I am the only goldfish whose thumbs are sticking out; or the wing in the airplane that is not flapping properly.)

By committing my work as an actor, something new happens. I’m suddenly aware of how I can transform the piece from the inside. I am no longer divided. I trust in the power of the ensemble.

Theatre creation has to be all or nothing.

Why I laugh in rehearsals

A couple of weeks ago, I went to see a performance of Jean Anouh’s Antigone by Theatre du Pif. It was a virtuoso performance – one that left me reeling and unready to go home. The air was palpable, and I needed some time to decompress.

As we sat there and watched the audience filter out of the theatre, Josh turned to me. “I noticed you were laughing during Creon’s scenes. Why did you laugh?”

Why did I laugh? Why do any of us laugh?

As I struggled for words, Josh tried to help me out.

“Was it because of his accent?”

I blinked at him.
Wow, I thought, After working together for half a year, how can you misunderstand me so completely?

My laughter would never be for something as petty as someone’s accent. Sure, I have the capacity to sneer at people (I’m no angel), but when I do, it’s the completely opposite state to this. When I am contemptuous of others, I close myself off and refuse to see their beauty. Whereas in this state of heightened attentiveness, my pores are completely open. I laugh and cry very very easily.

I remember that when I first fell in love, I was laughing constantly. In fact, for the first six months, Yoshi and I were in perpetual laughter. I’d open Yoshi’s letters and laugh, and laugh… not because his content was particularly funny, but because the way he phrased things was so Yoshi. Recognisably Yoshi.

Similarly, I laughed during the “rather serious” dialogue between Creon and Antigone because I recognised something so... stubbornly paternal in Creon. Even after he gets Antigone to capitulate, he can’t shut up.

Call it then, a laughter of recognition.

In the same way, when I direct, I hold nothing back. In the rehearsal room, I am in a very similar state to being in love -- I marvel at my actors; I revel in their essence. My job is to be their best audience, open and vulnerable to the recognition of truth.

Yes - sometimes I see bad theatre or dance in this open state, I have toxic reactions. I will start making strangling noises and begin foaming at the mouth. Obviously, this is generally considered impolite and I have to be restrained before I start banging my head against the nearest wall. But the source of this reaction also comes from a deep abiding love of the theatre. I once watched a terrible production where they tried to cut and paste tai chi and theatre together as some gimmick. I went to see it with my tai chi sifu – he was fine, but I was foaming at the mouth when we left. It really hurt me to see these two practices, so close to the bone, thus abused. Ok, deep breath. 退一步，海闊天空…

If you want to know me, you should know this about me, because it’s pretty fundamental. I need to laugh. When I work as a director, I need to laugh. But my laughter is never in personal. It may be at our egos, maybe at our stubbornness, but more probably because you did something that triggered off a powerful association. Actors who have worked with me before know that when I laugh, it's probably a very good sign.

My laughter is our barometer of truth. Censor my laughter, and I'm like a fish on a bicycle.

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> Click to watch Jungle Train 5.0
This is a short piece we made for Concrete Jungle Berzerk!

Warning: contains inappropriate laughter.