Artists
Photo Credit: NIU Chun-Chiang
CHANG Chia–Jung
CHANG Chia–Jung
| Location | France / Paris |
|---|---|
| Residency | Cité Internationale des Arts |
| Year of the Grant | 2009 |
| Work | La Belle Dormeuse |
| Personal Website | CHANG Chia–Jung's Personal Website |
Artist Statement:
I was selected by the Ministry of Culture to participate in the artist-in-residency program at Cité Internationale des Arts early in 2010. I wanted to know how my work Sleeping Beauty, inspired by a European tale but created in Taiwan, would develop in a European setting. Thus I began working with local artists on rewriting and rehearsing this show. Working with French actors was a completely new experience compared with my previous creative and directing duties. Westerners had other ways of performing and working, as well as different languages, body structures, and facial characters to give the show new life.
At my Paris auditions, I placed images from a Taipei performance behind each auditioning actor. Surprisingly, a striking contrast developed between the French actors and the images from Taipei. This interesting disparity had shed light into the concept of border-crossing among collective humans. That was why I decided to rewrite and restructure the script for this show. I incorporated the images from the Taipei-version with the Paris performance and used both Chinese and French actors and languages. Projection of images interweaved with live actors on stage to create a train of connection that linked together cultural and language spaces. The theme for this show was about the most basic and the most ancient idea of relationships - love between man and woman. This show was performed at the Librairie Le Phénix as well as Le Regard du Cygne.
I returned to Taipei from Paris and again rewrote the show created during my residency. La Belle Dormeuse was born in 2011, with my emotive experiences in France included in its content. I invited both French and Taiwanese actors to interpret the script together. Languages from the East and the West were mixed with cultural and spatial disparities, allowing this new version to develop on its own from the Paris-version. As such, this show is well suited to be performed again in Chinese for different audiences. Video images from each performance could be incorporated into the next performance, creating a cyclical relationship between each performance and presenting a sense of continuity and change in repetition.
I had gained so much but also faced plenty of challenges from the cultural and artistic impacts posed by the residency. However, like the characters in La Belle Dormeuse that walked into the real world after the curtain call, I too took a new step out of the study room into my field research and workshops. This new step allowed me to expand the way I write and brought about new development and experimentation to the form of performance. I was able to explore the ‘indefinable theatre of the future.’ I hope to find the connection between the self and the world, and to create a type of ’therapeutic theatre’ that possesses the power to comfort and inspire.