Performance has a magic capability to weave the past and the future in an immediate time-space; it may also numb us with a sense of liminality and anaesthetize our alertness. In the post-performance talk, a member of the audience asked, ‘I was stunned by your cruelty to us — why did you blind us, deafen us and even tie us up like an authoritarian?’ ‘I was stunned by the conformity of the audience too,’ I responded wryly, ‘Why didn’t you resist? To what extent have we taken freedom for granted?’ My retort might sound rude yet it is accurate, as I have come from a city of political turbulence, and I had just re-presented such struggles in my performance. Can anyone guarantee that the freedom the people gained 30 years ago is going to last forever? We were all lost for words.
The full text is available online journal Contemporary Theatre Review: Interventions.
wen yau reflects on the idea of ‘a peaceful revolution,’ as well as its effectiveness and legacy, through the lens of her installation and performance Wir sind das Volk! (homage to all peaceful revolutionaries), which was shown as part of ‘The Ends of Freedom’ exhibition in Leipzig in December 2019. Her artistic project brings together traces of uprisings from different times and places, including the 1989 demonstrations in Leipzig and current protests in Hong Kong. Addressing the intersection of temporality, politics, and performance, she argues that ‘[p]erformance has a magic capability to weave the past and the future in an immediate time-space; it may also numb us with a sense of liminality and anaesthetize our alertness.’ The Leipzig demonstrations offer an almost mythical instance of a non-violent civil movement — an image that starkly contrasts with police brutality during Hong Kong protests, which was described as ‘alarming’ by Amnesty International. wen yau, however, is careful not to idealise the past. Instead, she insists that freedom is fragile, and one should not become complacent. ‘Can anyone guarantee that the freedom the people gained 30 years ago is going to last forever?’ she asks. Her question powerfully reverberates not only in Germany but also in different parts of the world.
From Editorial by issue editor Eleanor Roberts, with Ella Parry-Davies, Aneta Mancewicz, Bella Poynton, and Broderick Chow of the issue.
This writing was commissioned by Contemporary Theatre Review: Interventions, Issue 29.4: Political Times, Winter/Spring 2019/20.
Wir Sin das Volk! was part of the exhibition “The Ends of Freedom” at HALLE 14, Leipzig, Germany, 7/9-7/12/2019