Woven 織 

--- for an actor, pipa, electric bass, drum sets, glass instruments, electronics, and interactive visuals 

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Through the performance, the actress is accumulating wearable artifacts that embody the binaries of past/present, male/female, east/west. These artifacts are arranged in specific groupings at different locations on stage. Each group of artifacts embodies a different mix of binaries and the performer is tasked with integrating the materials and their concepts into her evolving character throughout the performance.

The audience is understood by the performer as a mirror upon which she tries to organize and understand her multilayered persona. At the conclusion of the piece, the actress joins the audience, takes a seat, and photographs the scene that she has recently departed.

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Composer-Director: Weilu Ge

Multimedia Artist: Maya+Rouvelle

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Pipa: Yiming Feng

Actress: Wenling Zhao 

Drum Sets: Tianyi Zhang 

Electric bass: Jiawei Zhang 

Glass Instruments: James Rouvelle

Live video/PTZ Camera: Lili Maya

 

Sound Mixing (Duanjun Theatre): Matthias Erb

 

Program notes: 

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We respond we adapt, we change and through that process we become amalgamations of one

another across time and space. An ancient force propels us. It weaves us

together, connecting past and present, male and female, East and West, known and unknown.

Our project is about this energy. Spanning binaries, it is an enduring, essential, ancient force that

builds social cohesion as it fosters individuality.

But we must do our part to both weaves and to allow ourselves to be woven and to permit the

the process to live within and around us; otherwise, things unravel and we become lost in piles of

tangled threads.