Sat Oct 10 - Oct 24: Performances, experiments, gatherings
Huzhu Xiang No. 8 (check details on www.overseasproject.net)
What happens when we spend time together? What paths are crossed, how is intimacy created, what are the limits of togetherness and what spaces lie in between the ordinary and the extraordinary?
The OVERSEAS project began in 2008 as a performance arts project by three creators of the Chinese diaspora (Elaine W. Ho (USA/HK), Monika Truong (CH) and Simone Truong (CH)], their shared background as the starting point and from whence the overall name OVERSEAS is derived.
The term "overseas" references those of Chinese heritage living outside of China, but rather than any claims to a particular identity, it is how we go beyond it towards relating to one another that remains the focus of our work. Identity can be a daily routine, it can be a performance. But the context, and the strength of the relation, are what enrich the process.
Since 2008 OVERSEAS has developed as a series of workshops, movement research and video explorations between Zürich and Beijing. Investigations have brought the team into the very heart of the old capital, and since August of this year the initiators and a team of local Chinese artists and performers have lived and worked intensively within a traditional courtyard in the center of Beijing, using this site as workspace, living space and point of inspiration for a series of confrontations and exchanges between daily life and representation, language and meaning, the ordinary and the extraordinary. The result is OVERSEAS, close by, a multidisciplinary event combining an evening of food and friends with visual arts and performance.
The gate at Huzhu Xiang No. 8 (Off Fuyou Street (Zhongnanhai West) and Guangming Hutong, Xicheng District) opens from the 10th of October for a series of exclusive gatherings involving a visual and theatrical experiment quite different from anything experienced before in Beijing. For one evening, OVERSEAS invites you to drop into the courtyard and explore its spaces as we have—both as a familiarity and something completely new.
OVERSEAS, close by, premieres Saturday, 10 October with performances running through 24 October. Please check online on www.overseasproject.net for the exact schedule. Each performance, including fine dining created by the chefs of Café Sambal Group, lasts from 19.00 to 21.00, and due to the nature of the event audiences are asked to remain for the full three-hour duration. Reservations required. For inquiries, please call 139 1108 8640 or e-mail overseas_china@sina.com.
This project is part of the exchange and cooperation programme “Swiss Chinese Explorations” of Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts council. Additional support by Café Sambal Group, Theatre in Motion, Theaterhaus Gessnerallee Zürich, Südpol Luzern and Alice Tak Yip Chin.
http://www.overseasproject.net