Details

Chinese Two-Step: 1925-2005 is a live street performance piece illustrating the journeys of the Chinese community through the decades from the '20s through to the present day. Told through the media of music and dance the piece charts the arrival of the Chinese in the UK and focuses on a single couple who progress and slowly age through the decades. The piece begins with two people launching 2 large paper boats which travel round both fountains. A bride and groom, both wearing traditional red, processing from opposite sides of Trafalgar Square and meeting at the foot of the steps, in the middle, for an enactment of the Chinese Wedding ritual. The bride is carried on a red sedan chair by attendants bearing red lanterns and her path is strewn with red petals. She wears a long red veil that stretches across the length of the square. The couple meet and perform a traditional dance which involves draping red silk over two of the Trafalgar lions, moving into the dance and music of the 1920's. Changing costumes and music to reflect the era, they progress through the decades and through the different areas of the square, with each dance also reflecting aspects of Chinese life during that time. For example, forties tea dancing, fifties rock and roll, sixties Beatles, etc. They dance with one another, but also with the audience. The other volunteer dancers will lead the involvement of the audience in the dances and celebrations. During the course of the piece the couple age until they become the venerable elderly characters that inhabit so many of the Chinatown districts around the UK. Finally, dressed in the white of the Chinese funeral ceremony, the couple drape white silk over two of the Trafalgar lions. The bride returns to her white sedan chair and together they process along a path of white petals on their last and final, joyous journey. Attendants launch white paper boats of commemoration and let them drift into the fountain. Members of Chinese community groups, young and old, will participate in the performance as dancers and revellers across the decades. The music will be recorded, moving from lively Chinese processional music, to familiar western pop tunes through to Hong Kong Cantopop. Punctuating each decade will be short narration, both factual and fictional, marking key stages in the couple's relationship and historical events in the world around them. Running time, approx. 30 minutes.

Creatives/Company

Company: Yellow Earth Theatre
Director: David K.S. Tse
Design: Sigyn Stenqvist
Choreographer: Sinman Yue
Other(s): Kumiko Mendl (community coordinator), Andy Cheung (text)
Sound: Roger Douek