Aerial Silk Theatre - “ Sex ” Consciousness In Intimate Fabrics

Artists: TSENG Chih-Wei, MEI Chih-Ling

CREATION ORIGINS

With the elements of theatre we will observe the sex consciousness between bodies and fabrics, and utilizing Aerial silk as the form of the creation. In addition to the fabric used for Aerial silk, we will also try fabrics that have an intimate relationship with our daily lives, such as: clothes, sheets, towels, etc. The shape, texture, color and size of these daily objects are connected to the stereotypes we have towards gender, sex, & sexuality semiotically. Putting the fabrics of daily lives in a theatrical space, and playing with the extreme physicality that Ariel has mastered, we are aiming to interrogate the encounter of circus & theatre, and the mixed point of view of female & queer.

We will use photos and videos to present our works in this period of the creation, and the two creators will be the performers.

CREATION NOTES ( May 6th )

For the first rehearsal in Thinkers’ Theatre, we experimented different possibilities of the fabric of Ariel silk and the space. We found new ways of Ariel silk because Thinkers’ Theatre itself tells lots of stories, there are imaginations in the bookshelf, stairs and terrace. The long fabric was twining everywhere with our bodies joining in from different angles. In the process, some interesting images made us think of some relationships of human beings: Intimacy of lovers, a mother and an unborn child, bodies without gender, etc. And at the same time, we imagined different ways of shooting for the presentation online.

After the try out of physicality, we started to write down some keywords from our intuitions on one paper, and then categorized them onto another paper into categories: body, fabric and between both. At this moment, the facilitator Ding-Yun joined the discussion. He suggested to put Ariel silk aside first, and extend the discussion without it. Then he asked us to find three words that we wanted to approach and have a further conversation with each other. He also shared a way to look at things without binaries while we went further into the three keywords we found.

ARTIST JOURNAL ( TSENG Chih-Wei )

Coming from different backgrounds, Mei and I have both created works about gender issues. We appreciate professions of each other a lot. However, this is the first time we work together. It’s a long journey to transform two lives into a creation. “Queer” and “Feminism” are both very big issue, what do we really want to say about it? “Everybody has gender issue.” said by the facilitator Ding-Yun. We will be able to find what exactly we are communicating with the world when we look carefully on our histories instead of rushing ourselves to finish a creation.

ARTIST JOURNAL ( MEI Chih-Ling )

Today we had the first rehearsal in the theatre. I thought it would go smoothly since Chih-Wei and I had lots of discutions before. However, it wasn’t as easy as I imagined. We used our different experiences of physicality to experiment with Ariel silk. We questioned each other: “what is sex?”, “what is male and female?”, and tried to be non-binary. The facilitator Ding-Yun then reminded us that we were still in the binary if for us, the opposite side of “male” is “female”. What if it’s “non-male” ? Perhaps there’s no right answer for gender issue. We should be more open for known, unknown and predicted things in order to think widely. Not to stick to Ariel silk but start to dig into our histories. Start from simplicity then find what we really want to do.

綢吊劇場—親密布料的「性」意識

創作者：曾智偉、梅芷菱

創作緣起

馬戲與劇場的相遇，女性與酷兒視角的交集。在危險的情境中，極限化的身體與物件、空間說故事。綢吊作為創作形式，結合戲劇的元素，觀看其身體與布料所呈現的性意識。除了一般綢吊慣用的布料，嘗試衣物、棉被、毛巾等與身體有親密關係的貼身布料，這些日常用品的形狀、材質、顏色和大小，都擁有性愛、性別和性向的標籤。

此階段的創作研究，將以影像的方式呈現，兩位創作者作為其中的表演者。

創作紀錄（5/6）

首次在思劇場的排練，我們嘗試綢吊布與空間的不同可能性。思劇場本身是個非常有故事性的空間，書牆、階梯和樓台都給人許多想像，因此也打破了綢吊原本呈現的框架。我們把長長的綢吊布纏繞在空間中，兩個表演者的身體從垂直和平行的維度加入，有趣的畫面讓我們聯想到不同關係的表現：男女激情、母體中的胎兒、無性別的身體...等。同時，想像屆時線上呈現時，各種鏡頭表演的可能。

在經過身體的嘗試之後，我們各自將直覺聯想到的關鍵字寫在壁報紙上，再經由討論將關鍵字挪到另一張壁報紙，並分類：身體、布和兩者之間。接著協作者鼎云加入了我們的討論，建議把表演形式－綢吊先放一邊，繼續延伸議題的討論。於是鼎云請我們在茫茫字海中，找到想與彼此對話與激盪的三個關鍵字，接著又再從中延伸，並分享了非二元的看事情角度。

藝術家日誌（曾智偉）

來自不同背景的梅子和我，都曾發表與性別相關的作品，我們對彼此的專業技巧都很賞識。然而這是我們第一次合作，如何把彼此的生命經驗交織成一個創作，是一個需要時間的探索過程。「酷兒」和「女性」都是過大的標籤，我們真正想說的是什麼？而如鼎云分享：「每個人都有性別議題」，重新仔細回看自己生長過程，而不急著想如何發表作品，或許才有機會找到自己在跟世界對話什麼。

藝術家日誌（梅芷菱）

今天是第一次與智偉進入排練場，原以為彼此在事前討論了許多想法，真正進入排練時會順利的進行，但當真正開始工作時，卻沒有想像中簡單，我們以各自不同的身體經驗與綢吊進行了一連串的嘗試，過程中不斷的感受與提問對方，何謂「性」又何謂「男」與「女」，努力跳脫二元，但當鼎云提出：你們想到「男性」這個詞，聯想到的相反則為「女性」，這就已經身在二元框架中。我們該去思考的方向，或許是除了「男性」之外的所有「非男性」，是不是對於性別這件事，已經不存在所謂標準答案，未知的、已知的、預設的，應該大膽去設想與全面性的思考可能，不拘泥於綢吊這項物件，對於創作內容或許可更著重在彼此的背景，從簡單出發，不急於成品，而去探討更深入的內容，找出真正想做的事。