Summer 2005

Is this the feeling I need to walk with?

noreply@blogger.com (Hofan Chau 周可凡) — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 21:48:00 +0000

... The past month, as I have been walking, I keep having dreams of rehearsing, and making a fool of myself in performance. Either I forget my lines, or my cues, or something. So last night I lay in bed and gently looked at this fear in the face. Just the thought of performing had an immediate visceral response: my heart area knotted up.
As I didn't want to wake my roommate I stayed in bed and wrote a letter in my head to Bonni and Sean [from Theatre du Pif]. That completed, I mulled over an imagined conversation with Thomas Prattki (the main teacher of LISPA, who auditioned me); and then a letter to Sally and Sharon [my dance teachers from Swarthmore].
I think I came to the conclusion that I am doing the best thing I can by confronting this fear and going to LISPA. The reason I need to do so is because whether I am "any good at performance" is irrelevant compared to the problem that I have a block on some area of my expression. And until I deal with it, I will be living less than fully.
Later that morning I wrote an actual letter to Sharon (in the abbey before morning mass), and in the process of doing so, realised the anger in me towards the Lecoq school. I have a tendency to take responsibility for things, and think very much in terms of "what can I do now" or "what I might have otherwise done." In doing so, however, I have overlooked the anger and hurt that I do (did?) feel. Now I see how my fear has is roots in my hurt and anger, and until those feelings are acknowledged, remain fungi in the dark.
Some other images came to mind: (1) the necessity of confronting this fear is as daunting as playing chicken with traffic or staring down an ongoing train. Yet somehow I trust that the reality is a lot less scarier than my imagined fear...
(2) In this month of walking I have managed to walk beyond what I feel I want to or consider physically possible. and the way I have done it is to slow down and walk consciously, in conversation with my protesting feet or ankle. It might take me much much longer to get there but I do get there. So if I can negosiate through and traverse physical pain I also have the capacity to do this with psychological fear...
More than anything I need to be patient and gentle with myself...
With all this things feel better, and if not yet all good, certainly processing for the better. I feel very lucky to have all these friends and mentors I can invoke - even in my imagination! - to get me through things. Yes I think we've felled a forest between us...
-- Edited excerpt from a letter to Christine, in Moissac, the last stop (for the time being at least) of my Compostela walk this summer

Ondaatje - Murch conversations

noreply@blogger.com (Hofan Chau 周可凡) — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 04:45:00 +0000

I am reading a collection of conversations between Michael Ondaatje and Walter Muroch on film editing. They'd met in the filming of Ondaatje's book, The English Patient, where Murch was the film's editor. Their conversations have provoked a number of thoughts:

1. I think I would enjoy film editing.
There is a type of precision and problem solving in this process that I would enjoy. I know i had a lot of fun editing video clips in my HKU job the year before.

2. I would like to learn a lot more about sound
Murch pays a lot of attention to sound editing. Recently I have been listening to the rain at night a lot. How does sound create and impact an image? This is a vast area that I would like to explore more.

3. Maybe I should try to grow a novel the way I grow dances.
Reading about Ondaatje's writing process, I am reminded of the way I make dances. Basically he produces a lot of material over a long period of time (four, five years!) and then comes up with a first draft that he then has to edit.

I get this intuition that part of the difficulty with writing The Second Tower of Babel is that I have not found the right structure for it. So why not try a structure that I am familiar with? I need, however, to devote a lot more time consistently on the project than I have...

4. The importance of ambiguity
"Each stage [the acting, the shooting, the editing and the sound] leaves a residue of unsolved problems for the next stage - partly because the particular dilemma you're facing cannot be solved in terms of the medium that you're working on right then.. you have to approach every problem as if it's desperately important to solve it.. [but] as hard as you work, you must have this secret, unspoken hope that one very significant problem will remain unresolved. But you never know what that is until the film is done. You can almost define a film by the problem it poses, that it can't answer itself, that it then asks the audience to solve." (pp.104-5)

Murch goes on to give concrete examples of how different stages of the production of Return to Oz has lead him to revisit a fundamental question of who Ozma is - a real person or a figment of imagination. "Even though I'd answered the question in many guises, I hadn't answered it in musical terms. So here was the problem restating itself."

As I flit between different mediums, each medium is going to offer a particular solution to a question.

--- Bibliography ---

Ondaatje, M. (2002) The Conversations: Waler Murch and the Art of Editing Film. Bloomsbury: London, UK.

Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage trail

noreply@blogger.com (Hofan Chau 周可凡) — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 12:28:00 +0000

With all the turbulence of transferring schools, my grandfather's passing, and high season plane tickets, my walk on the Santiago pilgrimage trail will take place a little later than I expected. But I am going... I'm flying to London on the 12th September, drop my bags off, and head over to Le Puy in France to walk for a month before school starts.

What is the Camino de Santiago?

The Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage route to the city of Santiago in north-west Spain. The route dates back to the Middle Ages but continues to be well trodden by thousands of pilgrims every year. Along the route are refuges where pilgrims can sleep in for minimal cost.

Over Easter, I had found walking in the forest really restful for my mind (see entry on Foret de Saint Germain). Then, while visiting my friend Sabine, I picked up a book by Paulo Coelho from the bookshelf. The book itself is not his best work but since I am acquainted with Coelho's work I thought it might be good practice for my French.

Sabine's mother noticed me reading it over the breakfast table and told me that her brother had gone on this trail. Something clicked then - yes, now wouldn't this be a fun idea?

There are a number of routes that lead to Santiago. I plan to start from Le Puy in France and see how far I get. If you are interested in joining me - even for part of the trek - let me know.

For more historical and practical information on the route, I recommend the overview written by Antti Lahelma

----
Photo credits: Sergio Basto Castanheira Belo Horizonte (Brasil). Pictures are linked to their original website. (click on them)

It's a quiet night here

noreply@blogger.com (Hofan Chau 周可凡) — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 14:58:00 +0000

Black black quiet with dabs of tungsten...

I did not think much about the sea while I was in Paris, nor about the HK weather. But when I got home, I realized how I had missed the sea. (My sea, to be precise). My sea and the rain at night. Or the typhoons! With the furious winds, crashing waves and rain, relentless on the windows. Have you ever felt this: on returning to something familiar you feel such joy and relief that you realize how much this things (or person) is a part of you. You did not even notice their absence, but their return makes you realize how much you love them, home and warm blankets.

…
Recently I have realized my capacity to feel multiple emotions. What I mean is, in the past what usually happens is that I get consumed by one. But now I can be happy and angry and scared and hopeful. This became especially clear for me during the last week of term, when I got rejected from Lecoq and my grandfather died.

It sort of went like this: I was upset (I wanted/expected to get in), scared (am I no good?) and angry (how dare they let people less deserving than me in?)… but at the same time I really had had a great year and didn't want to overwrite or throw out how I feel about the school, teachers and my classmates. It was the last week of term and I really wanted to affirm and conclude with people all that we had been through. But I also needed to acknowledge my anger/fear/uncertainty, because repressing or pretending it doesn’t exist is not a good idea either. So I just let them all exist and orchestrated them like layers of music: the bass, the melodic line, the harmony. In doing so, I realized that I have a very large capacity to accept all these emotions.

Because of this capacity I was able to be there for other people, both for the people that didn’t get in (I was a positive role model and someone who could empathise and acknowledge their feelings) and of my other friends who did (and I was happy for them).

Workshop with 優人神鼓

noreply@blogger.com (Hofan Chau 周可凡) — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 01:46:00 +0000

Since I got back I have been quite frustrated about of not being able to find a common reference point with the average joe to communicate what it what I want to do.. all the more so because these include old friends/relatives I care about and want them to understand me!

However... this workshop in Macau has lead me to realise that there may be hope after all. It was with this Taiwanese theatre group 優人神鼓 (U theatre) who train as a community in the mountains an hour from Taipei. And with this I realise that we do have the convergence of art, self knowledge and community in our traditions (usually in the martial arts). This is exciting for me because now I feel like there is a paradigm I can work with to pursuit my work here in the Chinese speaking world.

The other thing I realised is that it is true that things are very difficult in HK, the commercial competitive mindset leaves little space here for creativity, and dance is particularly undeveloped. However, in Taiwan and Macau there is more space. Especially Taiwan... the population as a whole is more literary and progressive in thinking – just in terms of for example, the quality and quantity of books read and available in Taiwan, or of vegetarian food... and so I think... there are places in the Chinese speaking world where there is more breathing space for creativity. Of course, I know preciously little about the Macau and Taiwan community, and I still have my two year stint here in HK, but now I think.. I don't really need to look so far away from home to find inspiration and a common language.

Diamond Baby

noreply@blogger.com (Hofan Chau 周可凡) — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 22:25:00 +0000

Bytom, Poland (30 June, 2005)
Direction: Licht Kamiya
Performance/Co-creation: Hofan Chau & Licht Kamiya
Music: Bob Marley

I learnt a lot from the process of creating Diamond Baby. I have a clearer idea of how to grow my dances. When I say 'grow' I really mean this: to come to a dance without a preconceived notion or theme, to build a shared vocabulary, and then let a theme and a structure of the dance emerge. In this sense, every dance is rooted with truth about a relationship.

One of the things I am particulary satisfied about Diamond Baby is how it reflects the lightness, humour and wonder in my relationship with Rihito. I am glad we are able to share the magic and laughter in our transformation of the cups with the audience, because it is one of the best parts of my relationship with Rihito. In the piece, this quality serves to open up the audience, before it flips to loss to solitude and then back into joy.

I am searching for this bridge, I think, to transform the tools we have acquired into something honest and true. The tricks/tools we are learning in Lecoq are old ones, and I get the sense that I am riding on the wave of collective knowledge. There is a certain logic in the discovery of what is "new", and there is much ground I need to cover and digest before being on the cutting edge.

One thing I have learnt from being around Rihito is the non-linear nature of skill. While there are certain things which one acquires through diligence and practice, there are others which one acquires through finding the right connection (the right state). Once you tap into this source, you can go very very far, much further than years of practice can take you. I've seen him so it in voice, and in art. In dance too, when one considers that he has only been moving for two years. To reach this involves a high degree of listening and waiting for the right moment. Then you go.