Another Method of Remembering:

Several years ago, I heard this story. In a Chuanju troupe based in a small county in Sichuan, there was an old artist who was unable to read or write but from a young age had learned to perform hundreds of traditional pieces. During the Cultural Revolution, he was named a Rightist and was forbidden from performing on the stage. He was very worried that he would start to forget the pieces he had learned during his labor re-education so every day at the break of dawn he would silently sneak into the theatre and--in a corner where no one could see him—would run through each of the pieces he had learned. Days became weeks, which became years and after ten years when the Cultural Revolution had finally ended, he could finally take the pieces he had been so careful to keep safeguarded in his memory and pass them on to young performers in his troupe. After many years of pleasure and grief, the old artist walked to the life’s road leaving behind the pieces he had passed on and our memories of him.

Summary of “Sighing” Excerpt:
An old artist is forbidden to perform during China’s Cultural Revolution and instead becomes a cleaning lady. Instead of repeating the beautiful movements of chuanju, her days fill with endless rehearsal of daily chores set to the dull tempo of her new life. Despite the thousand changes of the world around her and the shifts and turns of her fate, nothing can change her overwhelming desire for the stage. The sound of the water sloshing off her mop, the tempo of water droplets in a bucket stirs the memories deep within her body. She begins to enter a chuanju piece left in her memory, into the character she once inhabited on the stage of the past. The sound of a bell wakes her abruptly from her dreams, destroying her memory. Instantly she returns to reality, picking up her mop, continuing her cleaning…

Why create “Sighing?”
This story of the old artist moved me deeply. I ended up interviewing several older artists and their personal histories and great attachment to their art inspired me to think about traditional xiqu performers’ physical memories of their extensive training and the relationship between artists and society. So for the 2006 Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin) Festival on Chinese “cultural memory” (entitled “China: Between Past and Future”), I accepted the invitation of then HKW-Director Dr. Hans-Georg Knopp and Program Director Dr. Johannes Odenthal to create a work for the program—this became later “Sigh.” Through this piece, I hope to convey that:
1. The creative life and artistic development of an artist is limited and influenced by societal development and changes
2. The physical body of artists is also susceptible to changes due to the influence of societal changes
3. Different training methods influence artists’ physicality and memory

The Persistence and Destruction of Body-Memory
The process of passing on the several hundred year-old traditions of Chinese xiqu (traditional “opera”) arts is an oral one, expressed in the Chinese language as “the mouth transmits, the heart accepts,” a process in which the tradition actually lives within the artists’ bodies. Xiqu artists have relied upon this process of “the mouth transmits, the heart accepts” to pass xiqu’s various forms from one generation to another, all the way to the present day. On today’s stages, we can still see performed the xiqu of hundreds of years ago, the hundreds of different xiqu forms, the tens of thousands of xiqu pieces persevering and being passed on. However, there remain elements of the forms that belong purely to the body of the artists—this cannot be orally transferred, cannot be learned or passed on, as it is unique to the particular performer’s interpretive and artistic sensibilities. These elements making up the artist’s individual artistic sentiment and expression follow the artist as they leave this world and are lost forever.
Contemporary technological developments help us to better preserve and save this kind of art which resides in the bodies of artists. Through use of written text, visual and audio recording we have been able to document the performative works and interviews of many artists. Unfortunately, many traditional art forms and many old pieces have been lost forever: either we were not able to record them in time or we did not preserve enough material on the form or piece, and they were not passed on to the next generation of performers. The speed at which this cultural loss occurs is both alarming and heartbreaking. There is a choice to what we remember and if great attention is not paid to these cultural elements, our memories will choose to abandon them. Thus, I believe that societal change affect physical change. Different training methods also affect physical change.
We all know that the most basic form of documenting cultural memory comes through writing and ritual. The method of cultural memory documentation for traditional Chinese xiqu performance could be said to be through the memory of the body combined with the memory of the heart. In maintaining their skills in singing, reciting, moving, fighting, and stage arts—aside from using their brain to remember—a performer cannot but rely on their physical memory. It is only when these two vessels of memory work together well that a performer’s expression can be perfected.
The development of Chinese xiqu to the present day has been a journey of continual transmittal and reception (passing on and receiving)—what is received, is developed, and what is developed is made innovative, and what is made innovative is created to be new memories.
Shanghai, 2009