ELISION, Yuč Lėng Jié (Moon Spirit Feasting)
Rhana DEVENPORT Given that ghosts and spirits travel in straight lines, diversionary tactics are required to deflect these beings from inflicting damage upon themselves or mortals. Narratives in South East Asian performance traditions often unfold in circular patterns. The elliptical storyline is seen by composer Liza LIM as a safety device against spirits. `A controlled space is thus created to deal with potentially dangerous situations.´ [1] The seemingly volatile Yuč Lėng Jié (Moon Spirit Feasting) is just such a space. A `Chinese Ritual Street Opera in Seven Parts´, this work by ELISION was premiered on the River Torrens as part of Adelaide Festival 2000. Music is by Lim, the libretto by Beth YAHP. If a neat plot full of sequential action and denouement were desired, one would be bitterly disconcerted. Yuč Lėng Jié captivated, startled, bemused, challenged and deeply respected its audience. The work draws on the mythology of the Hungry Ghost Festival. Chinese in origin, this annual month-long festival erupts wherever there are followers, as ghosts without ancestors are let loose into the world through the Gates of Hell. The full moon during the festival is the most dangerous time of the year, as the earth becomes crammed with hordes of hungry ghosts badly in need of amusement and a good feed. Communities take on collective roles to attend to these rampant spirits so that they may protect themselves for another year. There are countless versions of the Hungry Ghost story. Lim describes what she calls `the potential archaeology of the story´ [2] -- what we can decipher about a society's interests from the accents within each version. Lim notes, `The opera conjures up the figure of Chang-O to re-tell her story from a number of angles: Chang-O as a woman who is transformed into a goddess; as a figure of psychic nightmare; as a wish-granting heavenly creature (associated with fertility). The stories can be understood as projections of aspects of a society's anima in terms of symbolic interactions between cosmic forces.´ [3]
Back in Adelaide a disarming sense of occasion was created as one walked along the River, lured by a reflected pink glow emanating from a motley line of fluoro tubes sprouting from the earth -- their lurid colour intensified by wafts of incense. Moving towards the stage (a gaudily lit barge tethered to the shore), one entered the sprawling dedicated site to become engulfed in waves of fragrant smoke that disgorged from massive pillar-like coloured joss sticks for days on end. Handfuls of incense were given to the audience to do with as they wished -- some made private offerings at the shrine, while others lit them on the riverbank from where the performance was viewed.
Juxtapositions between the divine and the profane are important for Lim. Just as icons of the elegant Quan Yin sat on the Yuč Lėng Jié shrine beside cigarettes and a statue of a drunken monk, so to the presence of passing rowers and joggers became integral to the daily ritual throughout rehearsals. Despite the context being so vastly different from the spirit-laden streets of Penang, the sense of co-existence amongst artforms, the spirit world and the prosaic was present in Adelaide. The siting of the piece on the water connected beautifully with natural, (particularly lunar) cycles. Yet the spirit of street performance was ever present. One night, local Adelaide boys performed serious tyre-screeching in the park across the River; on another, floodlights and the jolly sound of rackets and balls from the nearby tennis court became integrated into the work, while helicopters (equipped with penetrating search lights) and jack-hammers contributed resoundingly to the performance soundscape. Two moments were especially memorable. One was the whoosh of a plane overhead as the Monkey King utters `Look! A cloud of bad omen flies across the sky.´ [5] The other was the swooping flutter of wings as black swans alighted from the river's surface seconds after Chang-O is transformed into a Goddess, flies to the Moon and sings her final aria -- `I rise, I ripple, I reach, I resonate, I relinquish, I face, I embrace you.´ [6] Since its inception in 1986, ELISION Ensemble have forged a unique presence in the Australian music world through their tireless commitment to the commissioning, performance and recording of new music in the contemporary classical genre, earning the ensemble a formidable international reputation and performance schedule. But it is their work with collaborative site-specific installation, particularly in terms of inspired international collaborations between visual artists (e.g., Judith WRIGHT (Australia), plink DECLARIO] (Australia), Crow (UK), Araya RASDJARMREARNSOOK (Thailand) and Heri DONO (Indonesia)) and composers that has truly broken new ground. These projects require substantial budgets and were often assisted through commissions by major events such as Perth Festival, the Third Asia-Pacific Triennial in Brisbane, and the Adelaide Festival. The intersections and impossibilities of multiple languages are acute in these high risk collaborations. For Yuč Lėng Jié, the libretto is written in Mandarin, Cantonese, English and a colloquial Malaysian-English dialect. Penang audiences would understand all four languages and although this is not so in Adelaide, it is also not essential to understand every word. Each language was consciously included for its unique purpose, defining the territory of each character. [7] The complexities of language are mirrored and amplified within the musical score in Yuč Lėng Jié. A subtle dynamic exists in the synthesis of text, voice, and instrumental sound. The discordant hybridity evident in the costuming is present in all aspects of the opera. The Queen Mother's (vaguely pornographic) transparent plastic costume was based loosely on the `chong sam´. The flashing lotus lights, the trashy mirror ball, the glaring neon tubes and the monstrous joss sticks were all sourced by the designer (Dorotka SAPINSKA) and director (Michael KANTOR) in Penang. The costumes `open out´ and `peel away´ to reveal layers beneath. In fact many aspects of the design, music, direction and libretto are centred on the idea of the `Chinese box´. The stage is an eight-sided barge in the shape of a `pakua´ which houses the eight trigrams symbolising the cosmic energy forms of the universe. The set is a makeshift assortment of bamboo scaffolding defined by light. The performers move between the barge-space and the audience throughout, continually fracturing the containment of the theatrical box and our belief in it. In the final scene, Chang-O disrupts all faith as she departs the entire stage-box via a ladder. Ultimately there is no `resolution´. The Moon Goddess returns to the spirit world, the performers, musicians and crew retreat from the `pakua´, the audience departs the dedicated ground. The crisis has been averted, only to be revisited (in the spirit world at least) same time next year. Lim describes this as an `agreed moment of parting´. [8]
This article first appeared in Eyeline: Contemporary Visual Art #42 (Autumn/Winter 2000) and is reproduced here with permission. |
Last updated Monday 02 February 2004
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