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Philosophy gets the drama treatment

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Hong Kong director Mathias Woo (胡恩威) has some pretty definite ideas about contemporary performance art.

On the current training of theater professionals: archaic. On Robert Wilson’s I La Galigo: multicultural trash. On Hong Kong’s cultural landscape: largely barren. On Asian art festivals like the one that brought him to Taiwan: too preoccupied with establishing a name for themselves on the international theater map.

While Woo might be accused of biting the hand that feeds him, there is no doubt that his approach to theater has garnered plenty of attention both in Asia and overseas. His much anticipated The Life and Times of Louis I. Kahn debuts tonight at Taipei’s Zhongshan Hall. All three performances have sold out.

“The training of performing artists and performing technicians are still in the middle ages and there is no platform for experimentation in formal institutions,” he said in an interview with the Taipei Times.

“(Whereas) the conventional concept of theater focuses on human beings on stage, I’m very interested in non-narrative dramatic structure. It could be presenting different ideas; it could be a lecture; it could be a discussion on a specific topic. Multimedia technology allows us to create a new form that is an interaction between images and space and light and sound.”

With The Life and Times of Louis I. Kahn, Woo uses a lecture format in a multimedia setting infused with jazz and classical music played live by two musicians.

Louis Kahn exerted considerable influence on 20th century architecture. One of Kahn’s approaches to space was to allow buildings to blend in with the setting, rather than the other way around. It is a philosophy that Woo applies to the stage.

“The space influences the set, not the other way around. Typically, in a more traditional performance, the set will not change from venue to venue … But this work is very interesting because it can adapt to different environments — it’s not fixed.”

Woo originally envisioned the work as a multimedia-musical work with musicians replacing actors on the stage.

“When we were developing the music we chose a jazz concert format, with a little classical thrown in because we feel that Kahn is both serious and classical but on the other hand he talks about joy and playfulness,” he said.

After reviewing the sound recordings of Kahn’s lectures, however, Woo added an actor — played by Hong Kong television celebrity Kam Kwok Leung (甘國亮) — who speaks lines culled from Kahn’s lectures and notes. As such, the work is as much a lecture by and about Kahn as it is a multimedia performance investigating the relationship between space, light and sound.

Although Hong Kong’s money-is-god ethos is a stumbling block to creating a vibrant performance art scene, Woo says the very fact that it lacks an institutionalized establishment allows for considerable experimentation.

“Hong Kong [is] in a unique situation because high art is not very strong, unlike the [US] and Europe. In Hong Kong, anything goes,” he said.

The Life and Times of Louis I. Kahn will be performed at Zhongshan Hall (台北市中山堂), 98 Yenping S Rd, Taipei City (台北市延平南路98號), tonight and tomorrow at 7:30pm and tomorrow at 2:30pm. 



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