The Stage As a Drawing Board: Zuni Icosahedron's Architecture Is Art

CriticalActs The Stage as a Drawing Board Zuni Icosahedron’s Architecture Is Art Festival Rossella Ferrari As audiences enter the Grand Theatre of the ciplinary exploration of the triangular relations Hong Kong Cultural Centre to attend Looking among the three media. Or, as phrased by Qin for Mies, one of the core productions of the Lei of Domus China as he introduced one of the Architecture Is Art Festival (AIAF) 2009, they programs of the concert series Architecture is... are each supplied with a 1-100 scale drawing of Discourse with Music, the AIAF is an opportunity the side elevation and stage plan, in lieu of the to “listen to architecture, and observe music” conventional playbill. Following a brief pream- (Qin 2009).1 ble delivered by an actor, also printed on the Since its establishment in 1982 Zuni drawings along with the production credits and Icosahedron has been at the forefront of Hong other information about the performance, a Kong’s alternative culture and has grown over chronometer begins ticking, and for 10 minutes the years into a leading force in Asian avant- the spectators are left alone to wonder — each garde theatre. Born as a dance and perfor- with a text to read and a plan in hand to try to mance group, Zuni has consistently strived to make sense of the show that is about to com- defy theoretical pigeonholing and strict dis- mence. Despite its name, the AIAF — conceived ciplinary classifications and has configured and directed by Mathias Woo of Zuni Icosa- itself as a nomadic entity, a company of trav- hedron — is not simply a festival of art and elers — through media, forms, concepts, and architecture but also, and largely, a festival of aesthetic domains. Artistic director Danny theatre. It is a celebration of architecture and Yung and his associates have created more theatre or, rather, of architecture in theatre and than a hundred performances as well as videos, architecture as theatre — the first of its kind in installations, and other artworks. They have Asia and possibly worldwide. It is also a festival also engaged extensively in arts criticism, of music — musical theatre, theatre music, clas- publishing, education, and cultural policymak- sical opera, electronic noise — and an interdis- ing.2 Interactivity, intertextuality, hybridism, 1. The author would like to acknowledge the support of Zuni Icosahedron and of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre of the University of Hong Kong. 2. Besides publishing catalogues, annual reports, essay collections, and monographs (mostly by Woo and Yung) documenting their own creative endeavors, in the early 1990s Zuni established a Cultural Policy Study Group through which they issued a number of reports evaluating the work of the local arts councils and other institutions. They have been active in public consultation and cultural advocacy ever since. They have masterminded several educational programs to promote creative work (performance, video-making, visual arts) among the local youth and the wider community such as the Black Box Exercise (since 1995), the Multimedia Theatre Education Scheme (since 2000), and Zuni Youth (since 2003). Since 2001 they have been publishing the self-funded cultural magazine E+E. Rossella Ferrari is a Lecturer in Modern Chinese Culture and Language at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Her research and publications focus on Chinese- Critical Acts language theatre and film, intercultural approaches to performance, and the theory and praxis of the avantgarde. Her monograph Pop Goes the Avantgarde: Experimental Theater in Contemporary China is forthcoming from Seagull Books (Enactments Series). 137 transmediality, journeying, mapping, and searching are all keywords for accessing the world of Zuni, and the AIAF matches the ver- satility, cross-disciplinarity, and investigative aptitude that have become synonymous with the group. This inquisitive bent is reflected by the four grounding interrogatives that were devised by Mathias Woo — a trained architect turned theatremaker who is also a prominent essay- ist, cultural commentator, and Zuni executive director — to provide a structure for the fes- Figure 1. Promotional postcard for the Architecture tival: What is architecture? What is Chinese Is Art Festival 2009, directed by Mathias Woo, architecture? What is City Odyssey? What is produced by Zuni Icosahedron, Hong Kong Cultural West Kowloon? Woo’s interrogatives under- Centre, 1 September–18 October 2009. (Courtesy score artistic matters (architecture, art, theatre, of Zuni Icosahedron) and their mutual relations), cultural concerns (traditional theatre, aesthetics and architecture, tive strategies constitute a defining element modernist theories and designs), and ways to of Zuni’s artistic-activist tradition and are, “develop a path that is intrinsically ours” (Yang in fact, performative practices in their own and Woo 2009:13). They launch an inquiry into right. The pictorial questionnaires designed by philosophical musings (the practice of “city Yung — often originating from specific stage odysseying,” of 21st-century flânerie, of walk- productions but then extending to broader ing, watching, and experiencing metropoli- issues in the public sphere — have been dis- tan spaces and soundscapes), and sociopolitical cussed as bona fide artworks (Chung 2003), and demands (the public debate over the planning Zuni previously employed postcards as vehi- and construction of the controversial West cles of public interrogation and civil activism. Kowloon Cultural District).3 The fifth implied One example is a set issued in August 1997 interrogative, which informs most of Woo’s to probe the responsibilities (or lack thereof) stage excursions, pertains to the conceptual of the Chinese and British governments over relations, affinities, and shared “constraints” of the question of Hong Kong’s handover to the theatre and architecture with respect to factors People’s Republic of China on 1 July 1997 (see of space, stasis, motion, materiality, mechanics, Finlay 1997). Another such postcard, addressed time, and technique (see Au 2001). to former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten, The creative team — a mixed crowd of was distributed in 1994 to raise awareness architects, designers, video artists, perform- about matters of artistic censorship in the for- ers, photographers, composers, cartoonists, and mer British colony in the run-up to the sover- arts critics — engaged a variety of forums and eignty transfer. media to voice their questions. Weeks before The AIAF four-part program, each part cor- the opening, a series of postcards display- responding to one of the questions, was highly ing the phrase “Architecture is” (followed by eclectic — comprising three exhibitions, two a blank space) were spread through the city’s conferences, two music events, and five stage major venues so that the public could actively performances over the course of seven weeks in intervene and contribute their ideas. Some September and October 2009. The first exhi- responses were printed in the AIAF promo- bition, My Modern Architects, was connected to tional booklet and follow-up questionnaires part one (What is architecture?) and focused and feedback forms were distributed to audi- on the legacies of Le Corbusier (1887–1965), ences after each performance. These interac- 3. See also the AIAF e-learning project and virtual tour of West Kowloon on the RTHK (Radio Television Hong Kong) website www.rthk.org.hk/elearning/architecturetour/westkowloon.htm. Critical Acts 138 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969), and Cheuk) of PMPS (People Mountain People Louis I. Kahn (1901–1974). The large inter- Sea), a prominent record label and independent active display The Forbidden City was linked production company based in Hong Kong.5 to part two (What is Chinese architecture?), The five stage productions — Da Zijincheng and Rethinking the Cultural Waterfront to part (The Forbidden City), Zijincheng youji (A Tale four (What is West Kowloon?). Public semi- of the Forbidden City), Looking For Mies, Corbu nars and lectures on Chinese architecture were and Kahn, and Donggong xigong ba zhi Xijiulong held through the festival along with the City- zhu (East Wing West Wing 8: West Kowloon to-City Cultural Exchange Conference on cul- Dragon Balls) — were all directed by Woo and tural space and cultural development, which altogether highlighted three essential strands Zuni has organized for several years with part- of Zuni aesthetics: technological, transme- ners from Taipei, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. The dial, modernist, almost futuristic — as repre- music program opened with Architecture is... sented by the multimedia performances Looking Discourse with Music, a series of electronic music for Mies and Corbu and Kahn; intracultural, performances by local and foreign compos- “archaeological,” focusing on the retrieval and ers such as Sin:Ned, Aenon Loo, Alok, KWC, updating of native performance traditions — as and Zuni founding member Pun Tak Shu — all illustrated by the two kunqu (kun operas), The from Hong Kong — and João Vasco Paiva of Forbidden City and A Tale of the Forbidden City;6 Portugal. Each evening the performances were and a third, exemplified by East Wing West followed by lectures by well-known Chinese Wing 8: West Kowloon Dragon Balls, the eighth architects (Liu Jiakun, Zhu Xiaodi, Wang Shu, installment of an ongoing series of satires on and Zhang Lei). The electronic concert City Hong Kong politics and society, which testifies Odyssey was

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