One Rehearsal

live show, 9 performances

video documentation

100 minutes

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Directed by Qingmei YAO, nine successive performances came together as “one rehearsal” at CACHE Space in Beijing, December 15, 2018. The performance, as can be seen as a real rehearsal, presents its stages in a flexible, even participatory way. Behind the scenes, Qingmei Yao questions the circulation and the transmission of gestures, sounds, texts between the scenic and non-scenic spaces.  

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Performance N°1  The moving socialist sculpture

 

The performance is brought to life by five dancers of different genres: modern, ballet, Xinjiang, pop, and traditional Mandarine dance. While moving through the corridor towards the gallery, the five dancers realize six still positions, with each dancer giving his or her own interpretation of gestures according to their specialities. Formed as “sculptures,” the dancers are required to maintain their postures for a relatively long period. It is through testing the limits of one body’s tolerance that they avoid a propagandistic iconography, but instead reveal a rather relaxed status, breathing or blinking their eyes. 

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Performance N°2  The sparks

 

The audience turns on 20 flashlights. The cold lights guide the dancers, leading them to move from the end of the corridor towards the room, where a gleam of warm light leaks through the door. The flashlights are left in front of the door before the audience enters into the room. Inside the room, the space is divided into three sections - two performing stages (A and B) on each side, with an audience zone of stools situated in the middle.

 

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Performance N°3 The New Age

 

While the dancers are warming up on stage A, a TV announcer appears on stage B repeating the words “Xin Shi Dai” (the New Age). He practices on the rhythm and the emotion of the pronunciation. As required by the director, he then gives a detailed introduction of the theories and techniques of how an announcer for the official Chinese TV channels talks. Later on, the “socialist sculpture” is performed on stage A, with the announcer continuing his phonetic practice on stage B.

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Performance N°4. March towards the New Age

 

Five amateur dancers in their fifties, all dressed in red sweaters and white pants, appear on stage A. Like many other women of their age, these amateur dancers, who are from the same neighborhood in Beijng, dance in public spaces regularly. Inherited with the popular disco music and propaganda choreography of the 60s, they are now part of China’s urban landscape. The performance flows in three sequences, a same piece of music is played repeatedly in three different rhythms. The titles are announced respectively as: “Marche towards the New Age,” “March towards the New Age, half the pace,” “March towards the New Age, 1/10 of the pace.” The cheerful communist music, exalted by the enthusiasm of the Party, gradually becomes heavy, ridiculous, and eventually unrecognizable in the end. It plunges the audience into a world of extravagant and terrifying sounds. The dancers, losing their musical references, realize their moves in a rhythm from their memories.

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Performance N°5  March towards the New Age

 

Five amateur dancers in their fifties, all dressed in red sweaters and white pants, appear on stage A. Like many other women of their age, these amateur dancers, who are from the same neighborhood in Beijng, dance in public spaces regularly. Inherited with the popular disco music and propaganda choreography of the 60s, they are now part of China’s urban landscape. The performance flows in three sequences, a same piece of music is played repeatedly in three different rhythms. The titles are announced respectively as: “Marche towards the New Age,” “March towards the New Age, half the pace,” “March towards the New Age, 1/10 of the pace.” The cheerful communist music, exalted by the enthusiasm of the Party, gradually becomes heavy, ridiculous, and eventually unrecognizable in the end. It plunges the audience into a world of extravagant and terrifying sounds. The dancers, losing their musical references, realize their moves in a rhythm from their memories.

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Performance N°6 The selfie rotation

 

A Peking Opera singer starts to put on makeups at the entrance of the room at the beginning of the first performance. When her makeup is completed, she enters on stage B. The singer rotates in a codified way with a smartphone in hand to take selfies, of which the smartphone is connected with a 15-meter-long cable linked to the control room upstairs. Footages from a video call through WeChat (the Chinese equivalent of Skype) are projected simultaneously onto a screen on stage A. The singer rotates to get herself tied with and freed from the cable again and again. The images from the smartphone illustrates her movements, filled with the normative Peking Opera gestures as well as the gestures of using a smartphone. 

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Performance N°7 “I am awesome”

 

The sound of music “I am awesome” emerges. An actor moves a loudspeaker onto stage A and puts it on two stools. As the rhythm of the music goes, he begins to saw the loudspeaker apart. The noise of destruction is mixed with the music coming out of the speaker; the music stops when the box is eventually cut into two pieces. End of the action.

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Performance N°8 . The clappers

 

The audience bursts into applause. The sound of this spontaneous applause diminishes and is gradually replaced by a rhythmic applause. Seven “clappers” are hidden in the crowd clapping in rhythm, while two cheerleaders shout “Great!” after each beat. The clappers become more and more recognizable, they enter stage A in the end.

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Performance N°9 . The last intervention: Is it authorized?

 

A National Security officer rushes into the room, shouting, “Is the performance authorized?” “Who is the manager?” “Get out!” He evicts the audience out of the room. A silence occurs, the audience is in shock. They are informed that this intervention is the last piece of the show.

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Thanks the support from Cache Space in Beijing

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