Huang Ding-Yun
When entering the rehearsal room in Thinkers’ Studio, TSENG Chih-Wei was holding the fabric provisionally as a cradle shape tied on the bars at the attic. The fabric seemed too flexible, directly dropped to the ground whilst Chih-Wei was getting into the fabric. Suddenly, he looked like a newborn baby and shouted, “Am I too heavy?”
MEI Chih-Ling is an aerial silk performer. She has been trained to perform circus arts, especially aerial silk for at least a decade. She invited Chih-Wei to have a taste of being tied and hanged as a starting point of their experimental cooperation. Actually, fabrics to two performing artists are common interests and also an important mark of their art practices. For Chih-Ling, fabrics are necessary supports and protections and are also everlasting companions while performing. For Chih-Wei, using fabrics is the strategy to be costumed and transformed. His practices are mainly centered on sexual identities, drag queens, and gay culture.
At the other corner of the studio, a big white paper was written with numbers of keywords. “Neutrality”, “Identity”, “Transforming”, “Cross-Dressing”, "Queer" and so on, were the collections of their pop-up ideas. Among the mind map of those keywords, I also noticed that many words were in pairs, such as “Male and Female”, “Ovum and Sperm”, ”Ying and Yang”, “Physical and Psychological”…. In our daily lives, we easily categorize words in pairs, those seem to come inevitably in pairs for some reason. The default of our mindset was silently shown on the naïve whiteboard—we always tend to categorize things for stable acquaintances.
Acquaintances make things more easily to be recognized, but they’re also derived from a stiff form of understanding. “I know nothing about queer…”, Chih-Ling said. She sadly showed her position this time and she wanted to learn from and cooperate with Chih-Wei because she was self-identified as a cisgender straight female with no experience in so-called queer culture and queerness. She felt she had no right to talk about them.
Compared with Chih-Ling, Chih-Wei showed more confidence in navigating queer(-ness) which had been centered at his art practices for a while. I was wondering why Chih-Ling felt she knew nothing about queer and even not being invited to talk about it. Should queer(-ness) only belong to a certain group and community? Is there any qualifications to talk about queer(-ness)? I invited them to use the word, “non-”, as the starting point to reshape those keywords on the white paper. The process of trying to point out the ambiguity of signified words gradually made those words become uncertain and unclear.
To suspend a word differentiates those meanings we’ve already been accustomed to. It is the way to rediscover what the word may refer to. In the beginning, it was really hard to speak as usual, but at the same time, they also got the sense of how many stereotypes each word may contain. Bodily, to suspend a word’s meanings was similar to the way they tried to lift themselves with fabrics. Their bodies were both restricted and they eagerly found different ways to cope with the balance and the dynamics.
After the non-binary language exercise, in the small and lovely Thinkers’ Studio, Chih-Wei and Chih-Ling were trying to experiment with body movements and fabrics. They imagined those fabrics sometimes like the second skin, sometimes like extended organisms, and moreover, an unknown organism they were going to perform and interact with. As they merged themselves into fabrics, two of them became just like hybrid creatures. It was both singular and plural. It continued changing transcendentally. That was a thrilling moment to see as something like theatrical magic, the magic that embraced many possibilities of imaginary solidarity, inclusion and also the way of crossing the boundaries. However, the magic fades away without permission as always. That was also the last time we got the chance to meet physically before COVID-19 cases surged in Taiwan.
Facing queer(-ness), Chih-Wei also tried to deal with alternative approaches. He did a lot of studies and found so many cases on sex/gender complex/fetishes in histories. Although he felt he seemed to have more experiences on the theme, meanwhile, those interests didn’t really reflect his own situation and identity. He could instantiate so many special cases and tried to “understand” the complexes but actually, those were seldom related to his own situation.
They started to narrow down the scope of what they were going to experiment with this time. “Crossing” and “Cross-dressing” became the central concepts. They used fabrics and clothes to experiment on their own and to see what they felt during the experiments. Trying not to express in art but perceived them first, they could see how they actually felt while they dressed up on the opposite sex dressing norm and how they actually felt when the fabrics became the extended part of your bodies. To know what an artist actually perceives and feels is more important than how radical the topic may be.
Cross-dressing can arouse someone's sexual desire. But if it doesn’t work on you, you don’t have to embrace those labels. They claimed they couldn’t be aroused sexually by changing clothes after the experiment. It seemed like the result was “failed”, on the contrary, I strongly felt that it was a great triumph of exploring.
To Chih-Wei, Chih-Ling, and me as well, sometimes, artists may feel worried about not being open-minded or “cool” enough to deal with the queer(-ness). Furthermore, we may worry about not having the right to talk about it. In the process, I observed the situation and also reflected on my own’s, how to be honest to live with your identity is somehow more essential to what the queer(-ness) has already been defined. If we conceptualize the term, queerness, it may always show the transcendence, the uncertainty, and the fluidity. Maybe if we just re-propose the question and put the so-called-ness into doubt, every artist can find a way to embody their radical gesture.
“Am I welcomed to talk about queer(-ness)?”, the answer is definitely YES! All you need is a brave heart to suspend yourself.
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文：黃鼎云 進入思劇場的排練室時，曾智偉正將布料臨時托著，像搖籃一樣綁在閣樓的欄杆上。布料似乎太軟了，當智偉鑽進布料裡面，就碰地了。突然，他看起來像個剛出生的嬰兒，喊道：“我是不是太重了？”
梅芷菱是空中絲綢表演者。她受過表演馬戲藝術的訓練，且至少十年的空中絲綢。她邀請智偉嚐嚐被綁上吊的滋味，以此作為他們實驗合作的起點。其實，兩位表演藝術家對於布料有著共同的興趣，也是他們藝術實踐的重要標誌。對芷菱來說，布料是必不可少的支撐和保護，也是表演中永恆的伴侶；對智偉來說，用面料是裝扮和改造的策略，他的實踐主要集中在性身份、變裝皇后和同性戀文化上。
在工作室的另一個角落，寫著一張大白紙，上面寫著一些關鍵詞。 「中立」、「身份」、「變形」、「跨服」、「酷兒」等等，集結了他們當下的想法。在這些關鍵詞的思維圖中，我也注意到很多詞是成對出現的，比如「男和女」、「卵子和精子」、「陰陽」、「生理和心理」等等…。在日常生活中，我們很容易將單詞歸為一對，由於某些原因，它們似乎不可避免地成對。我們的默認思維方式也顯示在純潔的白板上——我們總是傾向於將事物歸類為穩定的熟悉感。
熟悉感導致事物更容易被識別，但也歸因於一種僵化的理解形式。 「我對酷兒一無所知……」，芷菱說。她表明了她的立場，想向智偉學習和合作，因為她自稱是順性直女，沒有所謂的酷兒文化和酷兒經驗。她甚至覺得自己沒有權利談論。
與芷菱相比，智偉更自信地探索他的以酷兒藝術實踐為中心。我想知道為什麼芷菱覺得她對酷兒一無所知，甚至沒有被邀請談論它。 「酷兒」應該只屬於某個群體和社區嗎？其他人有沒有資格談論酷兒？我邀請他們使用「非」這個詞作為重塑關鍵字上的起點。試圖指出所指詞的歧義的過程，逐漸使這些詞變得不確定和不清楚。
懸置一個詞來區分我們已經習慣的那些涵義是重新發現這個詞可能指稱什麼的方法。一開始，真的很難像往常一樣說話，但同時，他們也明白每個詞可能包含多少刻板印象；在身體上，懸置一個詞的涵義與他們試圖用布料懸掛自己的方式類似。他們的身體都受到限制，並且急切地尋找不同的方法來應對平衡和動態。
非二元語言練習結束後，在溫馨的思劇場，智偉和芷菱嘗試著身體動作和布料的實驗。他們想像這些布料有時像第二層皮膚，有時像擴展的有機體，同時也是他們將要表演和互動的未知有機體。當他們融合成布料時，就像混合生物。它既是單數也是複數。它繼續超然地變化。那是一個激動人心的時刻，看到一些劇場魔幻，魔幻包含了許多想像中的團結和包容的可能性，也包括跨越界限的方式。然而，魔法總是在未經許可的情況下逐漸消失。這也是我們在台灣出現 COVID-19 病例之前最後一次有機會見面。
面對「酷兒」，智偉也嘗試著找尋不同的方法。他做了很多研究，在歷史上發現了很多關於性/性別複雜/戀物癖的案例。雖然他覺得自己在這個主題上似乎有更多的經驗，但同時，那些興趣並沒有真正反射到他自己的處境和身份。他可以實例化這麼多特殊情況，並試圖「理解」這些情結，但實際上，這些情結很少與他自己的情況有關。
他們開始縮小這次要試驗的範圍。 「穿越」、「變裝」成為中心概念。他們用布料和衣服自己做實驗，看看他們在實驗中的感受。盡量不要在藝術中表達，而是首先感知它們，當他們按照異性著裝規範打扮時的真實感受，當面料成為你身體的延伸部分時他們的真實感受。了解藝術家的實際感知和感受比主題的激進程度更重要。
變裝可以激發一些人的性慾，但如果它對你不起作用，你就不必接受這些標籤。他們聲稱實驗後不能通過換衣服來激發性慾。結果看起來像是“失敗”，相反，我強烈認為這是探索的偉大勝利。
不管是對於智偉、芷菱，還是對於我來說，有時候，藝術家們可能會擔心他們不夠開放或不夠「酷」到無法應對酷兒。更甚者，我們可能會擔心沒有權利談論它。在這個過程中，我觀察了情況，也反思了我自己的情況，如何誠實地接受你的身份在某種程度上比「酷兒」已經定義的更重要。如果我們將這個詞概念化，「酷兒」也許總是表現出超越性和不確定性，以及流動性。也許只是重新提出問題，並懷疑所謂的「理所當然」下，每個藝術家都可以找到一種方式來體現他們激進的姿態。
「我能談論「酷兒」？」，答案是肯定的！你所需要的只是一顆勇敢的心來懸置（掛）自己。
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