Where the People are... Screening on People's Theater in Inter-Asian Societies

2018-11-30 - 2018-12-16

《World Factory》

Time：2018／11／30 (Fri.) 6:30pm-9:30pm
Venue：Stranger Cooperation x Hsinchu Dongmen Market 3rd Floor (No.86,Datong road)

Video Introduction
Created collectively by Grass Stage, directed by Zhao Chuan, the work of World Factory was inspired from Zhao Chuan’s visit to Manchester, UK in 2009, and underwent 4–5 years of preparation. It explores the historical and geopolitical aspects, and especially the living conditions of the workers, in the global manufacturing industry. Members of Grass Stage has incorporated materials generated from their discussions, research, documentation and workshops into this collective creation, completed the play in middle of 2014, and toured in 9 cities in China. In 2015, Grass Stage created another production under same topic titled Apple and Moon, was performed in Shanghai and Hefei. Then two productions were toured to Shenzhen again for Foxconn workers, together with 10 days theatre workshop and seminars. Since it's premier in 2014, lectures and seminars were organized connected to the project, with involvements of international scholars and leading intellectual figures from the country.

Grass Stage was founded in Shanghai in 2005, with Zhao Chuan as its mastermind, and has since accumulated followers and influence. Within a framework of the most basic "poor theatre", works by Grass Stage use a diverse set of techniques, engendering powerful spaces for intellectual exchange. Grass Stage events made use of a wide range of venues and situations for performances and discussions, are not only spaces for bringing together diverse elements of society, but also provide, in a country relatively lacking in opportunities for public participation, a fluid and varied range of public social spaces.

speaker
蕭立峻 Richard Hsiao ，紀錄片《機器人夢遊症》導演
蕭立峻，1981年生，台大動物系畢業，清大人類所肄業。當過廣告、電視節目製作助理，苦勞網記者，辦過影展，搞過工會，作品多關注社會議題，包括 《這是三小》、《世界末日前的電影課》以及《機器人夢遊症》等。

 

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《The Moving Tent》

Time：2018/12/08（六）19:00-22:00
Venue：Jiang Shan Yi Gai Suo (No. 1, Xinda Road, East District, Hsinchu City)

Speakers
楊子瑄、林欣怡（海筆子 Tent16-18成員）
 

Video Description
The Moving Tent, document the development of Tent Theatre movement of Taiwan Haibizi from 2004-2016, and subsequently their moving trajectory in Japan and Beijing etc. Along with initiations and rest of tent theatre project, Daizo Sakurai and his members put 10 years worth of pondering, changes of their livelihood and work, unfold into a map of rethinking. During the filming period, director Singing Chen started from record in objective distance, gradually turning into a participant of the tent theatre movement, and become a participant in the theatre, which includes the construction of the tent, stages and design etc.

After trying to organize the images for more than a decade, "The Moving Tent" is more like an introduction, for both internal and external, and make the screening of the documentary as a mobile square for dialogue.
 

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《Injured Hand》

Time：2018／12／16 (Sun.) 19:00-21:30
Venue：Stranger Cooperation (No. 86, 3rd Floor, Dongmen Market, Datong Road, East District, Hsinchu City.)

Trailer：https://v.qq.com/x/page/b13308hhdsi.html

Video Description
The fourth wall is nonexistent here. A well-crafted scene inspires the audience to react to their own circumstances. Through the audience’ intervention in the lawyer’s debate, the power relationship behind the legal system and the absurdity and ruthlessness of life begin to emerge. The fitness instructor and the manicurist serve as the mise-en-scène, reminding us of the ideological background of the flesh. In the video, ordinary life is only restored once everything goes back to each individual. This is a public forum in the context of the theatre.    This performance interrogates how we measure the monetary value of a pair of hands. What does judicial interpretation mean in this context? When a factory worker loses his arm during work and gets $610,000 in compensation, and when the famous pianist Lang Lang’s fingers are insured at $100,000,000, the class relationship between human organs is established. The apparition of commodity value haunts our flesh and blood. The body is mutilated, stuffed into the intricate meat grinder of capital value, and fulfills the formula of blood compensation in the new era.

Speaker
Director: Wang Chu YuWang Chu Yu is a contemporary artist, performance artist, and curator based in Mainland China. Born in Shaanxi, China in 1974, Wang started his artist career in Beijing in 1994. He has participated in numerous international performance art festivals. His recent projects include “Die Hamletmaschine” (2015-2016) and he directed the theatre project “Injured Hand” (2017). He founded the “Qian Xing Art Institution” in 2016. In 2018, he. directed a concept theatre named “For Our 56 Workers” and “Hong Kong People.”

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Moderator：LI Qi（PhD Student, Social Research and Cultural Studies, NCTU)

Organizers：
The International Center for Cultural Studies (ICCS), National Chiao Tung University (NCTU)
The International Institute for Cultural Studies (IICS), University System of Taiwan (UST)
Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Chiao Tung University (NCTU)