In this episode of PillowVoices, we bring you an interview with choreographer Yin Mei. PillowScholar Suzanne Carbonneau sat down with Yin Mei to discuss her work titled Empty Traditions / City of Peonies in August, 1999.
In this episode of PillowVoices, we bring you an interview with choreographer Yin Mei. PillowScholar Suzanne Carbonneau sat down with Yin Mei to discuss her work titled Empty Traditions / City of Peonies in August, 1999.
In a 1999 interview with Pillow Scholar Suzanne Carbonneau, Yin Mei talks about growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution, which stripped people of their history and traditions. She speaks of how her work combines her past with contemporary concerns, as she investigates and reclaims her heritage.
Watch a clip of Empty Traditions / City of Peonies: https://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/yin-mei/empty-tradition-city-of-peonies/
[Music begins, composed by J.S. Bach, performed by Jess Meeker]
INTRODUCTION: Welcome to PillowVoices, a production of Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival with content from the Pillow Archives. I’m Norton Owen, the Pillow’s Director of Preservation, and it's my pleasure to bring you excerpts from an interview with choreographer Yin Mei when she was here in 1999 to perform her work entitled, Empty Traditions / City of Peonies. Yin Mei sat down with Pillow Scholar Suzanne Carbonneau. She talks about growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution, which stripped people of their history and traditions. Here Yin Mei describes how she combines her past with contemporary concerns, as she investigates and reclaims her heritage.
SUZANNE CARBONNEAU: The name of your work Empty Tradition refers to the idea of, of tradition, we think of tradition as being rich and full, and in our lives. Can you say why you chose that title, Empty Tradition?
YIN MEI: The title, Empty Traditions / City of Peonies referring my background, my culture. The title means empty doesn't mean literally there is completely emptiness of the culture. Actually it has two meanings. The emptiness from Chinese Buddhist practicing, is the highest level for people to practicing life and practicingunderstanding of life is when you are reaching the highest point that you can let go of everything and you coming into this stage of emptiness. And then you can receiving and go beyond is also referring the Chinese Tai Chi principles. And the Yin Yang concept of life is when you go to a point and then you, you transcend it and you become emptiness. And then you're coming back. So actually, from that point of view, I think it is an accomplishment.The other meaning about emptiness is that the culture that the era I grew up, during Cultural Revolution, that we ourself, Chinese, destroy our tradition. And anything old has to be banished, has to be burned.There are also happened in the history when a new ruler coming in that isn't anything that was not usable. They burn the books, they burn the thinking, they washed people's mind. So the time that I grew up during Cultural Revolution, it's almost like the same situation that repeated in the history but in different way. I must say that we absolutely destroyed all the thinking, all the culture. So for the new generation like me, that we basically grew up knowing nothing about history, and disconnected. But what do we know it's only the Chairman, Chairman Mao’s book, and we recite the book and we learn from there. We disconnected. So from that point of view, I think that we do living in the empty tradition era.
SUZANNE CARBONNEAU: How then (clears throat), coming in later, and looking back on Chinese traditions, how did you reconnect with tradition, because we do see some traditions now in this work. How did you go back and find the older traditions?
YIN MEI: I think going back to looking for the tradition it was existed still there. It's a, it's a surprising, surprise for me. Coming into this country for like 10 years and I kind of like run away from, from China as far as I can. So I leave everything behind. And after 10 years, I went back, and I start to realize the precious thing, that the culture is still there. In a surface, it's not existed. But once you found the thread, you still can trace this thread and looking for the treasure there. So I've been looking into Tai Chi as my through line. I've been practicing Tai Chi. I had a benefit, and I had realized a lot of things that I would never be able to see through certain this period of time. But because of that I'm interested in Tai Chi physically and mentally. So I went back to China quite a few times and get some chance to meet those older people. And I discovered the value, the treasure, the tradition is still there, very rooted in China still. So that was a very rewarding discovery. So I guess I'm still very in a way naive. But I really do discover there was a wonderful for me to go away for 10 years and then coming back and to really can see what is wonderful and what is it precious is still there and be able to embrace to it and to inhale and to be using and reaching myself in my work and choreography and dancing too.
SUZANNE CARBONNEAU: Would you, would you talk a little bit about your own training when you started dancing? Maybe say when you were born and when, what age you started dancing and what kind of dance you studied?
YIN MEI:I was born in China, and that was during Cultural Revolution. I was chosen to be a dancer when I was in elementary school about four or fifth grade. At the time Cultural Revolution started there so no and no entertainment and no arts was basically there. Only there we have eight model plays. There are two of them are dance for the past, for the 10 or more years during Cultural Revolution. We see nothing but this eight model plays. There are two dance plays created by Chairman Mao’s wife. One is the White Haired Girl and well, I was a little I saw the movie of it. I was just mesmerized by that performance. It was just absolutely beautiful. So I, it's first time to see dance that beautiful. So I asked her my father buy me a pair of ballet shoes. So, so his relatives, I got one pair of ballet shoes. And I remember that day the package arrived, I was just coming back from the country because all the young children has to be going, sent to the country side to do some farmer work because which is called the receiving re-education from the workers and the farmers. That's our big thing when I grew up. So I have this mud on my feet, but I couldn't wait to wash it to put my foot into the shoes. So I had never had any training whatever forms just put on the shoe, choreographed on myself and danced in school and many other places, just go to do the propaganda for the, for the use of these schools and the revolution purposes. That's my first starting of dance. And then all the companies, I mean provinces and states in China has to learn that model plays because there's only, China is huge many, there's such a demand. So every state and a city has its own dance companies. They are performing nothing but this two model plays so they need new blood. So we were, I was being choosed from school to study dance, but since we were told to study traditional Chinese dance, but it was not traditional Chinese there so there was ballet. Everybody, no matter what kind of background you are, you have to put on your ballet shoes to dancing this model play. But to me is a great advantage. I love to study the technique. Well, I should say, give me a good advantage is, is to brought me into this world of art. But I was restrained in a way because I was very, very free. When I start really getting into class, I become very timid. Because then you start to judging yourself, you're not having a long beautiful leg, or your beautiful arch. So you compete and then you feel like you're not at the top. And then you really realized that a lot of things to,to feel sad about it. So,so I think I was, during my training period, I was very determined in my spirit, but I was restrained in many ways. And that's why then later on, I give up Chinese dance and all kinds of dance I go into modern because I felt modern can give me, modern dance can give me this freedom to, to express my own feelings and to be dance freely. All kind of traditional form, that it restrained my spirit. I enjoy to learn exactly like the teacher, little changing of the eye, a little shape of your hands, has to be looking exactly like your teacher. That's good. But in the long way, I felt like boring. I needed to have a freedom. That's why I come into modern dance and come to America.
SUZANNE CARBONNEAU: Can you talk about leaving China: when you left and where you went?
YIN MEI: Uh-huh.I left China actually in 1979 when the Cultural Revolution just finished it. I went to Hong Kong. At the time Hong Kong has a new dance company. So I had a chance to be a be the principal dancer in the Chinese Dance Company. I had a lot of good experience working with actually people from all over the world. Hong Kong is an international place. So you have a lot of foreign choreographers and some Chinese choreographers come to the company to working with us. It's always what traditional Chinese Dance Company, as I said that, in my mind, actually somewhere else. Even I had a great experience in there. In ’84, American Dance Festival, Charles Reinhart, went to Hong Kong, and invited me to attend the American Dance Festival. So that was my first experience in modern dance and seeing modern dance. I was really wordless at the time. I felt like why should I dance? My body is so stiff. I only know one form of dancing, of movement, while I see the other people the freedom that they have the body and I really told myself, you've had to quit, you're not a dancer. So that was a eye opening experience. And then ‘85 Asian Cultural Council’s director, Rob Samuelson went to Hong Kong. So I get a grant from the Asian Cultural Council. So I studied modern dance and choreography in New York, at ‘85. I was the Nikolais school for a year.
SUZANNE CARBONNEAU: Have you have and you've lived in New in New York for the last 10 years?
YIN MEI: Yes, yes. Only in New York. I’ve only lived in New York.
SUZANNE CARBONNEAU: Um the, why don't we talk about the other title of the work that you've made here, City of Peonies. I know that refers to Luoyang. Can you talk about Luoyang and growing up there and…?
YIN MEI: Um Luoyang is the city that I grew up. The city has two beautiful names. Everybody knows Luoyang is the city of peonies because there is a wonderful legend has been said. There is a woman ruler only woman ruler in China. Once she got drunk in the morning and she saw in, actually its winter she saw the snow covered garden blossom, where, there is plum tree blossom, covered by the snow was a beautiful sign. So she decided all her garden should be blooming next morning. So she ordered her gardener. The next day she came to the garden and all the flowers has been blooming. Only peony had refused. So she was so angry she pull out the peony and she exiled the peony to the city of Luoyang, which is the city I grew up. That's the legend. And from then on Luoyang everywhere in blue bars and mountains and countryside, and everywhere people lived. In April there is richest peonies and blooming throughout the history, about 1000 years. And we have many, many poetry and stories and talking about Luoyang’s peonies. Its huge and beautiful. Many, many, many colors. At the time when I arrived in Luoyang, is during Cultural Revolution. And the peony was forbidden to be grown. Because we are the revolutionaries, we hate the flowers because flower can corrupting people’s mind and thinking. So peony was forbidden to grow. That gave me a very strong image to thinking about the peony, and the rebelliousness of peony and being a young child growing up in that time and the experience and has been with me for so long my own experience. So I decided to use this as a metaphor to create a piece that is using the voice of nature, but it reflecting the inner voice of, of human.
SUZANNE CARBONNEAU: Hm. And so the Luoyang you said, it is also known for another thing besides peonies, which is paper. Hust talk about that.
YIN MEI: Uh.Luoyang has another beautiful name. When people ask where you come from, and you say I coming from Luoyang. Then the first response is “Oh, city of peony” and the next, next response, people will say, “Luoyang’s paper are very expensive,” because that's a beautiful name for people to admiring scholars. Because Luoyang is 10 capital city for 10 dynasties through history. It's a very old, ancient city. Paper was discovered in China at the time and many, many scholars, artists will stay in Luoyang area and writing poetry and painting pictures, calligraphies and because there are so many of them, the buying papers like mad. So the papers price win all the way up. So that was another historical reference. People giving to, give Luoyang, so yeah. So then that image also give me a strong idea to creating this dance, this piece. I thought I would like to dance on books. Books reflecting time, history. Dancing on books has two meanings to me. One is people respect a book in human history, especially Chinese scholars. They worship books. But every ruler when they come in throne, there's anything that they don't like, they burned the book first. So book could be destroyed, putting the most violence treatment to books. For me that I'm a woman usually was being put aside of the scholar field, in the tradition, but during Cultural Revolution, people has no respect to anything. They destroy everything that was owed, as I said before. So for me to dancing on books, is a kind of a rebelliousness in the inside of me want to have a little voice wanted to do. So, the books and the peony become a strong image of mine when I start to form this piece.
SUZANNE CARBONNEAU: And this is a collaboration with the installation designer Xu Bing. Could you talk about your attraction to the work of Xu Bing and the collaboration with him?
YIN MEI: This piece, I had collaborated with two artists. Once I have this image of books, and I started talking to the set designer, actually he’s a installation artist, Xu Bing. I had, I saw some of his old work. And we were a friend for quite a long time. And we were trying to do some work together. But it never really had a chance. So this time when I thinking of writing this proposal, and I had chatted with him seeing that, would you mind to design the set for me that I wanted to use those Chinese paper books and be able to dance on books. Then he and I had quite a lot of meetings and chat a lot of ideas. And we, we were so thrilled, thrilled by the idea of dancing on books, we have so many ideas, and we would try it. And then finally we have to throw out a lot of them. But finally, this is a piece that we performed here is our final decision. He had designed the book as a Chinese calligraphy, writing on the rice paper. But the words itself has no meaning at all. It’s just made up words, looks like Chinese characters, but really no one can read them. So they can nonsense book that nobody can read. And so I think this is very, very good to put it this way. If there is meaning of books, probably we have to give us another, we have to really respect what is the words of it. But now since there’s no meaning, there’s absolutely no sense and they will feel much more freer. But in other way that you see the form of the books, and you have to show a respect to the book, but in the other way that you, you destroy them, you're dancing on top of them, you wipe them away, you play with them.
SUZANNE CARBONNEAU: And you've also collaborated with Tony and who had in some ways, similar experiences to you growing up in a culture that was in turmoil. Can you talk about your decision to work with Tony?
YIN MEI: Yes. My other collaborator is the composer Tony. I know him also for a few years while I was dancing in international dance festival in Jakarta. Once he came over, he said I would like to write a music for you. I said, “Ah, good.” But I have a I have no money to inviting you to write music. He said, “I don't I don't want to, I don't want to money. I just want to write music for you.” So I was very moved by that experience. So two years later, when I have this proposal written. And he’s the only composer actually had said that he liked to write music for me. Of course I will inviting him. So to write music with, for me for this piece. So I called him and discussed it with him. And he was very thrilled for the project. And I think we worked pretty hard together. There's lots of struggles through to the last year’s experience. But finally, we had to come to a point that we start to understand each other. So that makes me feel very, very happy. The ending, actually this product, this production was pretty satisfaction to me ,very much. And Tony also coming from a background in Indonesia. Well, I shouldn't say even he’s coming from Asia, he and I has a very, very different kind of background and traditions. And certainly he goes through his political experience in, in that era in Indonesia, maybe has similar experience. But it's very, very, very, very different in the in a way that I have to learn to understand Tony. It's a it’s a way to really learn a different culture. Xu Bing an I had the same experience. He grew up during the Cultural Revolution so we know exactly what we're talking about. So that’s in a way a little bit easier.
SUZANNE CARBONNEAU: You and Tony seem to have an aesthetic that is embracing your traditions. But having them also be about who you are in the contemporary world. This seems to be about combining, combining contemporary and traditions. Is that, you want to say something about that?
YIN MEI: During creation, creating this work, I had to come to the point that I felt like I'm strong enough, I don't have to run away from China, from my background anymore. I can turn around and look back and to see what is useful. What is, is inspiring to me to be able to bring my voice out. So I think after this 10 years, you become stronger, personally and artistically. So I don't really mind or actually, it's my, my joy actually, to go back to look at what is tradition that can offer to me. But in a way I don't have to use it as it is, I can use it in a way that I think is more suitable. And more complementing to what I try to express. And Tony, in the beginning, actually Tony’s background, he was trained in Western music. Even he coming from this tradition, very rich tradition, but he was trained in Western music. So when I give him this idea that I would like to use some of the traditional work. In the beginning, he was refusing, he was against my idea for a long time. I didn't know that until recently. He had a conversation with me. But it was very, very wonderful for him to understand, but in a way, trying and working with me even that, indeed, he doesn't want it to work this way. But finally, we both realize it works. You mingle tradition, because that's where we're coming from, we cannot say, “Okay, this is American, I'm American. Whatever it was past it was not exist.” It was not. We are who we are. And I'm Chinese no matter how, how many years I'm staying in America. That my past, it has this strong mark in my, in my experience and in my blood. So I learned this actually, quite a few years ago. I did a piece I said, there's nothing Chinese, nothing, little bit, not even a little bit of Chinese. I'm doing a modern dance. Once I get the review from Jennifer Dunning, I think from The New York Times, she wrote this is some kind of Eastern, rooted in the Eastern tradition. And I read I said, I told myself in the very beginning, this is going to be modern. There’s nothing Chinese about it. But people still experiencing something that it was from my background. So I realize probably that's in my blood. In terms of timing, I really do feel that way. So right. When take me some time to realize it.
YIN MEI: As a woman in the history, I think China especially like Chinese women grow up, going through a feudal society, there are so many restrained for women to grow up. In this men dominated society. Through history, Chinese woman has been suffered tremendous, tremendously. There’s rules, all kinds of rules to be putting on women. Woman has to be covered. Woman is, I think this is true to a lot of a culture has to be women become a property of men. Or sometimes when it’s even in the time that I grew up, you go to this country, if you ask the family “Is somebody there?” and the woman said, “Nobody’s here” because they don’t consider themselves as a, as a master of the house or the person in the house. Only your man is the man in the house, is existing. Seems like existing and women is not counted. So there’s so much restrictions on womens, on their free expressions. Of course, there's no free expressions at all. It seems like it's so far away from what we’re leaving in the time here.
SUZANNE CARBONNEAU: The other night you spoke about the idea of using energy in the piece and the work has a lot to do with the, the expression and use of energy. Can you talk about this? Seems to be a particular Chinese notion that a lot of people in the West are familiar with. Can you talk about that?
YIN MEI: My, my experience withTai Chi had give me an insight of seeing the body differently. The energy we can see them, we can see them you can feel them. When, when you be able to soften yourself and letting yourself settled. It’s like an experience, experience like the expression that you have a mud and water mingled together you can see not clearly. But once you let yourself settle and the mud become a mud and the water appear clear, now you can see better and you can experience you, you see your vision is more clear and your, your body is more soften. So in Tai Chi’s principle well that’s the first thing you need to learn is learn to settle yourself, to soften your body and letting the energy arise through your body, through your meridians and your acupressure, acupressure point and to reach out. So that way when you move you are more directed, energy directed. And this way you can move much faster or you can move beyond your body so it’s not like we are only dancing with the arms and legs. We’re dancing actually was being moved by the energy and your body is like container or a tube that it was we being moved to somewhere instead of you want your arm there, but you are being moved. So this is a very important concept to, in Tai Chi practicing.
SUZANNE CARBONNEAU: Actually, there’s two very different energies, while there are many different energies in the piece but there’s your Tai Chi kind of soft energy contrast very strongly with the deep one wins Wushu energy, a very different kind, can you…And my understanding is that wushu was often incorporated into Chinese theatrical dance and I'm interested in your desire to incorporate Wushu into Chinese theatrical dance. I’m interested in your desire to incorporate Wushu into the piece and what you think that does and why that decision was made.
YIN MEI: Yeah. While I start to really choreograph this piece and I know that my energy is coming from Tai Chi, this softness of water-like feeling can express the vulnerability of a woman or like nature, of flower. The peony is very feminine, but I know that I need the opposite energy against me, which is Samba. Samba is another dancer from Tibet. He is my partner now to dancing in this piece. His energy to me is it is represented the young energy, the society, the male, the dominating, the harder, there is restraint. And that kind of energy being contradicting to mine. And then I really do discover that I need some another energy which is bring us, bring us the balance and also waking us up that we are, as I said, we living in this world we have men, we have women, we have female and male and the society and individual. There’s all kinds of contrast. Then we need some to me that we need another form of energy to balancing us. So then I start to thinking about using a monk while the first time we performed at Asia Society. Actually this work was produced by Richard Cooper from the Asia Society. The first time we, we performed there we had invited a monk from a Shaolin Temple. He is my important role at the time. I think he appeared as a person that is having this power, this outside of this world and we are in the world. And he’s one has thistremendous power to overlooking at us and bring us to in a way, restring us to not go too far away and to be able to follow the flow, the circulation of the, the energy. So this time we had invited a Wushu artist. His name is Di Gwanwyn from China. Wushu actually it’s, it’s, it’s a form of performing arts I should say. It’s, it’s athletics. It’s not like Kung Fu like the monk does. There was really a fighting this is a fighting from that roots from the traditional Chinese martial Kung Fu and Tai Chi. But become itself a form of performing arts. Being compete in, in the world because athletic, athletic form. We use it because the, the Wushu has the tremendous energy, power. Can really bring this my energy and balancing my energy with, with the Sambas’ energy. So when we come to see the piece, now you can realize that the three of us represent a different kind of energy and power.
[Music begins, composed and performed by Jess Meeker]
NORTON OWEN: That’s it for this episode of PillowVoices. Thank you for joining us today. On behalf of Jacob’s Pillow, we look forward to sharing more dance with you through the films, essays, and podcasts at DanceInteractive.jacobspillow.org and, of course, through live experiences during our festival and throughout the year. Special thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts for helping launch this podcast series. Please subscribe to PillowVoices wherever you get your podcasts and visit us soon, either online or onsite.