As a foreigner, how do you deal with getting stared at 24/7? My policy is – no matter how hungry, tired, alienated or desperate to find a proper toilet I might be feeling – smile! Especially when you’re on camera.
Smile! You’re on camera!
Tag: Blog Post
Oh, China!
Daily life in China can be strange, infuriating, illogical and altogether baffling. “Oh, China!” is sometimes the only thing that can be said.
Beijing Dance / LDTX Studios
A morning at Beijing Dance / LDTX Studios It’s the first rainy day since my arrival in Beijing. I am met, somewhat sodden, at Dawanglu station by a young Chinese woman named Jade. Clutching our umbrellas, exchange our thoughts about London, the city we’ve both left recently, and Beijing, where we’re both newly living. Jade [...]
In Good Company
Hofesh Shechter Company's In Good Company It’s not often that dancers are given free reign to create new works of their own, and even rarer that they get all the support necessary to make fully-realised, successful pieces. That’s why In Good Company, the project enabling dancers of the Hofesh Shechter Company to present their own [...]
Tao Dance Theatre
Weighty, abstract and astounding: Tao Dance Theatre’s 4 and 5 Hypnotic, enthralling and undeniably special: bodies ebb and flow with the tide of change in Chinese choreographer Tao Ye’s 4 and 5. These are just two parts in a series of abstract works that “explore the potential of the human body as a visual element, [...]
Vortex Temporum
Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's challenging Vortex Temporum Dancers whirl through dark space, crossing paths, each following their own axes as they run at full speed along pre-drawn lines like ebullient planets. A deconstruction of the relationship between dance and music, Vortex Temporum is an engaging work, both powerfully engaging and lightly playful. This week saw [...]
When Something Fits, There’s Just A Question Of Being It
I recently made a major decision that will change my life. Since then, other parts of my life have really improved. Everything around me has taken on the glisten of wonderment that I hadn’t seen there previously. So, its probably about time I told the world. Or, at least, those in it who don’t already [...]
On Getting Burned
Burns, Baby, Burns... Last weekend I survived a bit of an ordeal. I’d been invited to an academic event hosted and attended by various people I’ve admired from afar and never met before - the kind of people I quoted in my dissertation, whose plays I studied at university, and who might be the help [...]
To shave or not to shave; why is that the question?
When it comes to hair removal, I am (to my immense irritation) unrelentingly hypocritical. It's something I've got strong views on but haven't always stuck to my beliefs in my own personal habits. On the surface, I believe it's a waste of time, money and sense. It goes right against my feminist beliefs. Knowing that [...]
Is there ever such a thing as a new interpretation of Shakespeare?
"How relevant is Shakespeare?" is one of those questions that crops up a lot. Particularly during a Theatre degree. The majority of contemporary Shakespeare productions I've seen have made the story, the characters, the language somehow relevant to modern life. From Baz Luhrmann's 1996 Romeo + Juliet to Ong Keng Sen's intercultural Asian Shakespeare series [...]
Zhēn de Gender 