Image: Supplied
When pro-democracy demonstrations began in Hong Kong in late 2014, Felix Ching Ching Ho was in Melbourne and Natasha Phillips was in London. Both went to solidarity sit-ins in their respective cities, but neither felt that this was enough. There was an important conversation happening in their country of birth and they wanted to contribute.
From this experience was born 7412 Kilometres of Relations, which featured at Big West festival this weekend.
As we enter the space, we are instructed that we can sit or stand wherever we wished. As we filter in and make our choices about where to sit, the two performers and the small stage management crew finish preparing the space. This continues long after we’ve taken our seats. It is surprisingly peaceful, and sets the tone of the piece as a process; a work that is being carried out. This, like the democratic movement in Hong Kong (or anywhere in the world), isn’t a finished product.
The lights finally go down. Our two performers stand in front of opposite white walls, and facts about their lives are projected above their heads. Their birthplaces, education, first kisses – facts we could all share. But marbled through their personal histories are the traces of their nations – we see the dates that UK citizenships expired and the different lists of national identity documents. These two women have had quite different journeys out of the same small but complex country.
Out of this peaceful opening, we hear a sickening crack. Some pot plants that are suspended from the ceiling in the centre are being cut down with secateurs. One at a time they hit the ground, soil spilling out of the pot onto the floor. She repeats the process methodically as the performers watch on.
From here, the piece continues with further symbolic and sensory meditations around its theme. The images are clearly considered and carried out with a pragmatic, intentional energy. But within these symbolic vignettes, I begin to worry that this is all the piece will offer – a sequence of theatrical images, pleasing to the senses but remaining opaque without context.
But these fears are allayed as language finds its way back into the work. The two performers talk candidly about their experiences of the solidarity demonstrations, and the sense of distance they felt there. They sing a song from the protests, and the warmest moment of the show comes when some of the audience sing along. The women play ping-pong and talk about some of their own thoughts around the movement. A heap of earth they have spilled on the ping pong table is the difficult obstacle they are both negotiating in this conversation. There is a particularly playful moment where the performers invite audience to ask questions about the work, but then add a series of caveats – you must be invited to ask a question, you must choose a pre-written question, and you must stand at a microphone to deliver your question. It’s a clever nod to Chinese government censorship, but the answers given by the performers are considered and generous.
During this section, Felix Ching Ching Ho talks about how the show feels like work she’s doing – not for or against the protest movement, but for Hong Kong. The work is certainly a process and there is a lot that remains to be done. But what these two women have begun is a work that raises awareness about a broader political situation and explores deeply personal and contemporary subjectivities in relationship to this political context. This is work well worth continuing.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
7412 Kilometres of Relations
Lead Artist Felix Ching Ching Ho
Co-creator Natasha Phillips
Stage Manager Alice Ng
Metro West at VU
27-28 November
