Lecture Three, I'm going to talk to you about “space” in my third lecture. Actually, where I'm sitting now, in this studio, with a lot of bars overhead, is a black box space. When you watch this video, it would be another space where you'd be sitting with a different environment.

We have to understand a space first before we deal with it, and then we'd know how to express what we want to say. Every space has its own structure, and every theatre has its own as well. Usually, we'd say, in a theatre, there are curtains, a stage, and then there are many bars above, and there are exits and entrances. These combinations / units came into being as what we have today through a long history of development of many theatres. Every design, every bar and every curtain has its own reason to be there. If we could use them after understanding their history, then we could make better use of them in a smooth manner. If we don't use them, then we understand those are parts which we don't need, and thus we'd know how to design the entire space one step further. I created a work called “Stage Sisters” a few years ago.

It was performed in the Grand Theatre of Hong Kong Cultural Centre. I was trying to understand the structure and space composition of the Grand Theatre of Hong Kong Cultural Centre, and then I tried to subvert the concept of that theatre. I asked the audience to sit at the very back of the stage, facing the auditorium, and so the auditorium was turned into the backdrop for the stage. Of course, what I had in mind at that time was to let the audience see the space that performers usually see --- the space performers usually see is the auditorium. Now, I'm letting the audience sit behind the performers, looking at the space facing the performers. When I subvert this space, I am actually asking questions. There are a lot of stories behind this space. When we understand this space, then we use different means to have a dialogue with it.

In this dialogue, I'm not only trying to say what I want to say, I'm also trying to say what this space wants to say. Let's try to imagine we go back 500 years in time, and see the difference between the theatre space now and that of 500 years ago. Of course, a space 500 years ago would reflect the cultural, social and technological situations of that time, as well as its political environment. The theatre today also reflects many of these elements. Certainly, with the development of technologies, the design of theatre space is constantly changing. For example, the capacity of a theatre, 2000 people, 500 people or 100 people.

That's an economic consideration. When we say theatre is communication of a real time and a real space, it is actually we often try to establish a closer relationship with this space. I have a friend named Sato Makoto. He's from Japan, and he started a movement in the 60's called “Black Tent”. He believes that a theatre itself should not be framed by a building, and so that space should be very flexible, and that space could travel to anywhere. Thus, he created a very big black tent, and travelled to different corners in various cities and villages. This is the first movement to explore how an existing space would limit creativity, and should there be a more flexible space.

That's the movement Sato Makoto started in the 60's. Up till today, we have been saying that what is behind space design are architects. In that case, what kind of interactions and exchange are made between architects and artists in exploring future theatre are very important. In Japan, a lot of directors and many famous architects are engaged in dialogue constantly in examining the relationship between space and creation, and the relationship between space and the stage. Unfortunately, we still do not have that kind of dialogue in Hong Kong yet. I hope that in the future architects can be directors and directors can be architects, and then they could understand each other more, and so could work together to deal with future spaces regarding communication, theatre, arts and creation.

Other than talking about space being the frame of theatre, I also think that time is also another kind of frame for theatre besides space. For example, why do we always start a performance in the evening, why don't we start in the morning? It's because we have to go to work during the day. Then, why can't we perform from the evening till the next morning? It's because we have to rest at night. Thus gradually the frames of time and space of a performance are determined. What is inside the frames is the same. As of the frame of time, let's say most performances last for 2 to 3 hours. It won't work if it is too long. If your performance is 12 hours long, then, it would become an experimental activity.

If your performance is 3 minutes long, then, it would be an issue of economic limitation. You cannot ask for a high entrance fee for a 3-minute performance because people are not willing to pay for that. In fact, some performances could finish what they want to show or say in 3 minutes, so why do they have to last for 2 hours? This is creation under the pressure of economic frame or limitation. I don't think “frame” is a negative word, but we have to understand the nature of these frames before we could interact with them, and then we could further develop them. In 2012, I used the concept of “venue / yard” to develop a work titled “Spirits Play”. Actually, the piece “Spirit Plays” is related to Makoto Sato. Makoto Sato and I had a good friend, Kuo Pao Kun, who had passed away. Kuo was a director and scriptwriter from Singapore. His last work before his passing is “Spirits Play”.

What “Spirits Play” talks about is the graveyard, about the many spirits in the graveyard who could not ease their minds because they have some unfinished businesses they want to take care of. Makoto Sato created a work, and when I developed that work, I tried to explore the space that we just mentioned by using the word “venue / yard”. We began that space with a graveyard, then we went further to an execution site, and then to a battlefield, then to a law court, and eventually to a theatre. In fact, what we were trying to say was that the space of a theatre represents a lot of different spaces, and the theatre provides us with flexibility the concepts of these various spaces, and in this way we get to understand creation.

Since there were ghosts and spirits in the performance of “Spirits Play”, I talked about ghost stories with the performers. One of them was a Kunqu opera performer, and the others were Noh actors from Japan. I had always wanted to do some collaboration of cross-cultural exchange. The Kunqu opera performer and the Noh actors were discussing about space, and then the Kunqu opera performer asked one of the Noh actors, “Is there anything you can share with us about the space of Noh theatre?” That Noh actor told us that the creator of Noh, Zeami, was an artist from 600 years ago. He wrote a work titled “Toru”, spelled t-o-r-u.

“Toru” is about a mother, a mother in a farming village. She went around asking people, “I was told that my son died in the battlefield, and I heard that the battlefield is nearby. Did you see his body?” The farmers told her that she might find him amidst the haystacks by the riverside. So, she went to the riverside looking for him. After that, she returned and asked the villagers again, and the villagers told her the same; but she came back again after searching. Then, the villagers found out that actually this mother was a ghost. She could not let go and rest in peace because she could not find her child. She had been wandering around that village in order to find some traces of the battlefield, where her dead son might be. When the Noh actor finished telling his story, I also told them a story.

In fact, after the June 4th incident of Tiananmen Square of China in 1989, the mothers of the young men who died in the incident formed an organisation, “Tiananmen Mothers”, and they come together every year on June 4th to remember their children. It has been more than 20 years now, and their children were only teenagers or in their twenties. They should have been in their forties now. Every year, these mothers won't give up commemorating, something that they won't let go. Because of this, when I created the “Spirits Play”, in the end the battleground became a theatre and then developed into a “square”. In this way, the whole place turned into a mourning ground, and there we mourned for the souls that would not let go.

That is the first time I really turned a space into a theme in order to deal with the arrangement of a theatre. Thus, we could see one kind of ground turning into another kind of ground...and then another...and another, constantly developing in order to remind us that theatre is actually many different types of grounds. In fact, when we talk about “squares”, and if we try to detach ourselves a little, we'd realise that many works of traditional performing arts are staged in a square or a plaza. Those squares or plazas are usually a space in front of some temple. That's why a square is a public space, a place where we could all participate in performing arts.

Basically, there are no boundaries for the performances in a square. As of today, the square has developed into a theatre in a building, and there are distinct boundaries for onstage and offstage. If we have known the origin of theatre, then we could go further to see how we should handle and develop the nature of theatre. In this way, we will certainly have more resources to deal with what we are facing now, the things we want to talk about. I think that a square itself is a very important public space and theatre. Sometimes, we would say that the audience of a performance in a palace and that of a performance in a square / plaza would be very different. In a public square, the audience would be the common people, or the audience would be the deities of a temple if the performance is held there.

If a performance is given in a palace, the most important spectator would be the emperor, and the purpose of that performance is to start a dialogue with the emperor. If that emperor is open-minded, then the dialogue would be developmental and critical; but if the emperor is conservative, the performance would become ritualised, decorative, and formalised. Then, all would become some sort of glorification, maybe it'd be dancing or singing; everything would become just a ritual. But I think rituals are important as well because there would be a lot of rituals in a square. There are all sorts of rituals among folks, such as, marriages, coming of age ceremonies and funerals. All these are rituals. Those rituals are some sort of theatre, so that we can all participate in a systematic manner.

Theatre itself is an occasion for participation. I think that space is actually...when we understand the relationship between space and rituals, and then further understand the relationship between the different kinds of venue spaces, then we could get what we want, and things would go smoothly, when we use that certain space or venue.