some feedback on the last showing:

(i think many of these points i may have already touched upon with you just after, but immediately post-performance it’s probably difficult to digest, so here again)

• – it seemed a lot more ‘performed’ this time compared to when Mon and I first joined the rehearsal. i missed the awkwardness of the “goofy-ness”, the unintended collisions… now it became more slick, more purposeful. on one hand, this made it less interesting for me, but thinking again, as Yijing pointed out, that we have to consider the final context that this will be performed in, which is a much less literally staged space. Thus we should consider, > performativity of the space leads to < awareness of the performativity of the performers? You are right that “noticing” is much more difficult when not on stage, when we are specifically asked to “watch”. Thus, building up the strong structuring of the movements may be necessary to break it down again in different contexts, with less control of the relation between audience and performer.
• – fenghai’s wobbly head…
• – the ending. on one hand, the awkwardness of not knowing if the performance is over or not is a great element to play with. but i guess given the formality of the last showing, with audience lined up properly around, it made it very uncomfortable. you feel very much an voyeur, seeing this vulnerable moment of the performers, intertwined and laughing amidst themselves. this again is something that i think will work much better in our final space, as i said, because we can understand as viewers this idea of “interrupting someone in their house”, versus “interrupting a performance”. seeing all of you raw like that in the end is something similar to what i said about making a situation where the viewers enter a darkened space only to find all the performers there, sitting together watching television. i like the idea that you expect to view something, and instead you view others viewing something else. this is a kind of uncanny. should we watch them watching tv, or should we watch what’s on tv?
• – moving the “distortion” section to the middle of the piece was nice. I think it worked well. i didn’t tell you before, but when i saw this section before, immediately thought of the paintings of francis bacon, which you should really check out if you can. it spoke a lot of the issue of identity for me, which was good in the wake of all this question of collectivity.
• – but regarding the progression from individual to collectivity, i am wondering why most of your ‘encounters with the other’ are based upon conflict, antagonism. this is the feeling that comes out of these accidents and the locking, and i would like to explore more what possibilities we would have to “collect” together on the basis of something more harmonious, something more “together”. what do you think? i think this is what you were getting at with the end of the piece, but why does this suddenly spring out of exhaustion? could we have not grown exhausted together, rather than out of going against one another?