The Refuse
Ⅰ
A little wooden boat drifts on the dirty river. A man and a woman. From their home faraway. Then they get onto the river bank here, build a little shelter with weed mats. They are ancestors of mine, ancestors of half the cities.
Ⅱ
Our theatre asks one question: do you still remember? Which means we are interested in history and memory, and similarly, in forgetting. There is no truth in history, but questions can have true answers. We want to ask in theatre why we remember one and forget the other, whose history we remember, whose we forget, and why. We may not be able to find historical truth, but we can find the true answers of ourselves to these questions. Memory is about our identity. Yesterday affects today. To discuss yesterday is to discuss today and tomorrow.
Ⅲ
This presentation is a result of documentary theatre workshop lead by Kai Tuchmann and Grass Stage, focusing Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea and research on ‘Penghuqu’ history. In this workshop, Tuchmann shares his working method that he started to develop since 2011 and embraces the possible changes this new encounter with Grass Stage may bring. He does not want to be the director in this process, but to find a new ‘our way’ together. This presentation is part of our first phrase rehearsal.
Workshop mentor：Kai Tuchmann (German)
Script writer：Kai Tuchmann and Grass Stage
Performers：Wu Meng, Yu Kai, Wu Jiamin, Chen Cheng, Jia Yin, Cao Yongjie, Zhao Chuan
Music: Sun Dasi
Video Documents: Gao Zipeng
Other workshop participants and behind – the – scenes crew：Christopher Connery、Ophelia Huang, Ding Bo, Zong Sijing, Liu Nian, Wang Yue
This project is hosted by Department for Culture and Education of the German Consulate-General Shanghai (DcaE), co-organised by am Art Space.
R.S.V.P:
reservation email to
yuji@amspacesh.com
, with name and numbers of comer. We will confirm with you by email.
Kai Tuchmann
German Theatre maker, studied Directing at the Drama School “Ernst Busch” in Berlin. Between 2003 and 2008 he worked at several theatres in German including Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, Deutsches National Theater Weimar, and Stadttheater Brandenburg. Sponsored by Goethe-Institut, he worked in Northern Africa and the Middle East from 2008 to 2010. His plays included: Dinka Folk Tales, Ten Stories About War, A Dream of the Wall, and Man without Music.
Kai Tuchmann started 2012 to develop his own approach of Documentary Theatre as alternative historiography. The students of the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, where Tuchmann taught in 2013, helped him further test out this approach. Also the encounters with Chinese intellectuals andn artists such as Wen Hui, Zhuang Jiayun, Li Yinan and Zhao Chuan were very influential to him.
Grass Stage
Since spring 2005, mainly managed by Zhao Chuan, Grass Stage has gradually drawn public attention and formed influence.
Fellows of Grass Stage encourage ordinary people’s devotion towards theatre, advocate social theatre which filled with conscious of public issues. Their performances situate in almost the most impoverished state a theatre could be, recklessly using body, text, documentary video, or ways like comic dialogue, clowning and performance art to inspire a strong mind-to-mind communication field. For years, they utilize various sites to conduct non-profit performances and discussions. Their theatre become civilian meeting place of different populations, constantly creating moving public space. Grass Stage has performed in many Chinese mainland cities, also in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Asia, and Europe.
