Kun opera, which has been designated a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity by UNESCO, managed to survive over the centuries through a process of change, and the CLT, in this new work, has continued the process, hoping that this more personal, philosophical and contemporary collage made up of strands drawn from China's cultural heritage, will win recognition for this beautiful operatic form in a new time and in a new world.
Interview with Lin Hsiu-wei, producer
Taipei Times: How did you come to write The Butterfly Dream?
Lin Hsiu-wei: I never really wanted to be a scriptwriter. Writing this show happened more by accident than design, but this did have a great advantage. It needed very few revisions during rehearsal. I have worked so closely with Wu [Hsing-kuo (吳興國), CLT's founder] over the last 21 years, so I know what he wants in the performance. He simply had to tell me his idea, and I would get it, even down to how it should be performed and how the scenes would progress. As soon as the script was finished, it was as if we could already see it all on stage, from the first moment to the last second. [Kun opera star] Qian Yi (錢熠) said she felt the whole opera was really me talking about my relationship with Wu. We started dating when I was 18, and we got married when I was 23, so we have been together for a very long time. You can see from this a person's ideals, and their love, and how in between these there are so many contradictions and conflicts. Eventually you see the other person with a tenderness born of your life experiences. I found that I incorporated so much of my feeling for him into the script.
TT: Did you bring your experience as a dancer into The Butterfly Dream?
LHW: I really like the idea of a dun (頓) - the idea of a pause. It is the pause when you have a moment of realization. The (Taoist) spirit of emptiness exists in the momentary pause between one action and another. ... [Taoist philosopher] Zhuang's emphasis on the "in between" appeals to me, this moment so full of potential, the idea that nothing is ever quite completed. Zhuang also emphasized ways of slowing yourself down - this can be a slow dance, the aesthetic of slow motion.
I choreographed all the movements in the show. I took the movements themselves from Kun opera, but the context, combination or the pacing might differ, which changes their significance, making something that is different from conventional Kun opera.
TT: Is The Butterfly Dream a departure from CLT's past work?
LHW: It has the same spirit. It is based in a classical tradition, but with a contemporary spirit. It is about taking something from the past and putting it in a new environment, a new time, and letting it generate new ideas and a new aesthetic. We naturally hope to generate an emotional response from our modern-day audience, and also hope that this might inspire people to go back and read Zhuang's works and listen to Kun opera.
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