The dancing path of originality
Local performance creator, J Lei on her way to an alternativeform of art.
In a society where the mainstream culture is dominated by the capitalistic idea of complacence, young people are encouraged to follow the path that everyone else chooses, in order to assure a predictable future. How many of our parents would really want to see their children be different from the rest of the crowd? Not because they do not want them to be outstanding, but because they would not want their children to suffer lack of support from society for being “too different” or “not obedient”. To be “alternative” seems equivalent to being “alone” or at least in a minority position. In order to exist against a mainstream cultural backdrop, extra effort must be asserted.
However, many of our most successful examples of personalities are often those who dare to be different. In Macau’s artistic circle, J Lei is considered a central figure. As a dancer, she founded with her brother Frank Lei and other artists the association “Comuna de Pedra” in 1996. For more than ten years since, she has been working incessantly, experimenting with alternative art in Macau.
From the 11th of May to the 8th of June, J Lei presented an installation exhibition in the gallery of the Ox Warehouse Art Space. “CREB – Camp Response Element Binding” was not an ordinary installation show. It was linked closely with J Lei’s latest creation from the recent Macau Fringe Festival in November of 2007. “The nature of that show was very different from traditional performance, where interactivity is usually ignored,” J explained with subtlety. But as it turned out, on the day of the performance, there was no performance at all. Instead, the audience only saw a series of installations. And then at the end of the “performance”, each person was given a DVD and was told to see the show at home on TV. “I wanted to challenge the traditional idea of ‘seeing’ a performance. I started to think that maybe people could see it from afar with a telescope on the rooftops of Macau. But due to the difficulty of finding suitable locations, I shifted the idea and decided to make a performance beforehand and record it with a camera. Then, in conjunction with the video artist Bianca Lei, we edited it. We simply distributed the DVD to the audience so that they can enjoy our show at home.” Needless to say, the show generated some controversy. “It was not so successful after all, and the criticisms are centred on the absence of live performance. But for me, the Macau Fringe Festival represents a spirit of subversiveness, and I simply took the chance to try something new.” So “CREB – Camp Response Element Binding”, which is in fact a protein in the brain responsible for memory, was extended into an installation exhibition, created by the absent performers of the previous show.
Coming from an artistic background of dance, J Lei was introduced to the arts at a very early age. After high school she
decided to go to Hong Kong and was enrolled in the Academy of Performing Arts in ballet. But apart from the experience of living in Hong Kong, which she found interesting, she did not like the classical ballet style that was imposed upon her in school. “At the time I was still not very clear about what I would like to become. But I found out that the traditional way of dancing was not suitable for me. So I quit the school after one year and decided to trace my path somewhere else.” Following the example of her brother Frank Lei, J decided to go to France. Arriving in Paris, she immediately began working with a troupe of dancers from Taiwan. “The experience was very important. We were practising and were constantly looking for space to perform in the city. The process was very difficult. I realised through this experience that in order to achieve what we want, we need to insist a lot. Nothing comes for free in life,” she recalled.
Later she was enrolled in the University of Paris 8 in Contemporary Dance and was finally given a chance to further develop her talent. “The educational method in France was very free. Free, not in the way that they don’t care about what you do. The professors would show us many different things and let us develop our interest through our own free will. They wouldn’t impose a single method on us as the golden rule. It was difficult, too, because we had to decide for ourselves. But it was much more suitable for me.” After graduating, J returned to Macau in 1993. But a short time afterwards she decided to leave again, this time to Beijing. “There was a severe lack of opportunity for dancers like me in Macau. I could not find a way to fit into the society.” J stayed in Beijing for nearly a year learning Chinese Folk dance and then returned once more to Macau. She said, “I guess I left to Beijing because I wanted to run away from the difficult situation, but coming back to Macau again I knew I had to confront the situation and couldn’t run any more.”
Starting out as a dance teacher in the Association of Dance in Macau, J became acquainted with a group of young dancers. She recalls that she didn’t expect this group of dancers would be very important in her life. “We started to form a troupe, and my desire to create came with that naturally. Although most of them were not professional, we practised more and more and finally developed something ready to be performed publicly.”
Since the creation of her own troupe of dancers, J Lei has gradually developed her role as a performancedirector. “I choose my performers, not according to how skilfully they can dance, but rather evaluate their emotional capability to express themselves. I always believe that true talent lies right there in their hearts. Then techniques can be learned and acquired.”
Thanks to the support of the dancers, J then realised that being “alternative” really does not mean being “alone”, and together they decided to form “Comuna de Pedra” in 1996. “We created all sorts of things during those years: performances, exhibitions, publications, you name it. We seized every possible channel to speak out our voice,” J said.
In April 2008, J Lei presented one of her most successful performance pieces at the Art Museum of the Fine Art Academy of Guangzhou. Composed with elements of dance, drama, music and video, “Kafka Listening to the Wind” was a site-specific multimedia performance work created by J Lei in 2006. After it was presented at the Macau Cultural Centre that same year, the show was brought to the Fringe Festival in Thailand last year and is scheduled to be shown in Nanjing this year. One of the reasons for the success of the show is the artist’s persistence at opening up alternative spaces for expression instead of using traditional methods and conception. Dancers were seen running everywhere, followed by the audience who were attracted closely by the site-specific choreography, lighting and music. All the various elements under J Lei’s design became one coherent space of flowing emotions. “This work is inspired by Haruki Murakami’s book Kafka on the Shore,” explains the artist, “but I did not choose to describe the scenes that could be found in the book. Instead, it is based on the feeling that I have towards his work.” Transforming words into movement and real experience, J Lei said that what she is trying to create is not an explanation of the Japanese author’s work, but an atmosphere of emotions. “For some people, that might sound very empty or uncertain, but for me, it is concrete and real.”