A Room of One’s Own “Dearest” Dance Theatre

“Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.”
——Virginia Woolf (1882~1941)

￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
“The Script Road” – The 13th Macao Literary Festival will present the final part of its two-year project “A Room of One’s Own” (Part III), a music and dance performance titled “Dearest”, from 28th to 29th June in the small theatre of the Macao Cultural Centre. Co-choreographed by Beijing-based dancer Jay Zheng and Macao-based dancer Tina Kan, and featuring performances by Macao-based dancers Tina Kan and Helen Ko, Beijing-based theatre actress Wang Xuan, and Beijing-based dancers Cai Guan Tao, Lin Bencheng, and Macao-based band Evade (Faye) for the original music score.
The project is inspired by the works and life of Virginia Woolf, the British woman writer who is regarded as a pioneer of modernism and feminism in the 20th century. Based on the understanding and analysis of Woolf’s literature, Macao Literary Festival workshop instructor Agnes Lam and theatre and psychotherapist Jojo Lam led the participants through a series of discussions, sharing and creative experiments, in which each person’s story was presented in words and theatre interactions. The curator then organises the written stories into a textual structure for the performance, with which the creative team develops into a combination of performance structure, dance, music, set and costume design, exploring the female condition, the androgynous relationship between the sexes and the ultimate journey of the self as presented by Woolf in her work “A Room of One’s Own”.
Named “Dearest” after the first word in Woolf’s last letter, the performance is a final confession to a loved one and a time for her to face her truest self. Woolf’s life was plagued by mental illness and chronic symptoms such as headaches, hallucinations, insomnia and back pain, but she did not let this deter her. She inherited her parents’ love of literature at an early age and began writing and participating in literary competitions at the age of eight. And although she suffered from mental illnesses all her life, she almost never stopped writing. She has written a number of classic works of modern literature (“Mrs Dalloway”, 1925, “To the Lighthouse”, 1927）. She specialises in “Stream of Consciousness”, at times complex and chaotic, which, under Woolf’s highly sensitive descriptions and delineations, deeply expresses the imagery of the inner world of human nature.
Woolf’s interpretation of life is an allegory of light, and the performance takes us into her mental world, her madness, her helplessness, and her strength. The stories created in the Literary Festival workshops seem to take us into the memories of our own selves: the space of childhood, the role of motherhood, the confusion of sexuality and intimacy, and finally back to “A Room of One’s Own” to face our true selves, and to write our own final chapter. The performance leads the audience to experience the inner psychological imagery of “A Room of One’s Own”, and to complete the redemption of oneself through the creative act.
￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
✧ DETAILS
Date：JUN 28 (FRI) & 29 (SAT) 19:45
Venue: Macao Cultural Centre Small Auditorium
Admission:
MOP210/pc for 2 persons
MOP230/pc (Early Bird before JUN 10)
MOP250/pc (Regular Price after JUN 10)
Ticketing: https://forms.gle/JosnzVYB5EZWgfyx7
*Post-performance Talk will be held on JUN28
✧ CAST
Curator：Alice Kok
Directors & Choreographers：Jay Zhang（Beijing）、Tina Kan
Perfomers：Tina Kan、Helen Ko、Wang Xuan（Beijing）、Lin Bencheng （Beijing）、Cai Qintao（Beijing）
Music Design：Faye Choi@Evade
Set & Light Design：Ketamine Tou
Costume Design & Styling：Mandy Cheok
Poster Photographer：Ren Liang（Beijing）
Workshop texts: Arie Jin, Wei Jinzhao, Cynthia Chan
Executive Producer：Kathine Cheong
*Duration is about 60 mins without seat plan