Yingmei in Wonderland – meeting in Amsterdam
Duration:
24.10.2022 – 30.10.2022
Royal Theatre Carré Amsterdam, Netherlands
Photographer:
Dustin Lynn, Joy Hansson
Live Performance
A co-creation by the Marina Abramović Institute and Royal Theatre Carré Amsterdam, No Intermission is a 7-day performance project comprised of 10 newly commissioned participatory performances and a new iteration of the Abramović Method, led by Marina Abramović. In No Intermission, the boundaries between the performer and the public are blurred, and the entirety of the theatre will operate as a collective performative experiment. All the spaces in the Carré will be activated by performance, from the central stage, the basement, the foyer, the corridors, and the cafes. The public will be invited to freely move through the space to experience the works.
Participating Artists: Carla Adra, Abel Azcona, Dante Buu, Yingmei Duan, Mauricio Ianês, Miles Greenberg, Maria Stamenković Herranz, Anthony Huseyin, Yiannis Pappas, Ana Prvački
Curatorial Team: Paula Garcia (Lead Curator), Marina Abramović, Thanos Argyropoulos, Serge Le Borgne, Billy Zhao
— MAI
“Yingmei in Wonderland” was performed as part of the performance art project No Intermission. Both interaction and collaboration have been important themes in Yingmei Duan’s performance practice since 2005. During her time at Carré Theatre, Yingmei presented a series of performances. Her performances mainly focused on interaction with audiences, artists, the theatre crew, and the space. People could experience different characters: Returning to her childhood enjoyments, Yingmei plays “Sandbag” games with the audience.
In “Fountain” a naked Yingmei moves around the space slowly holding a vase which has sounds coming from it.
Yingmei brings the audience’s imagination and fantasy to her adventurous journey through life in “Flying Luggage”.
Yingmei appears making uncomfortable noises at the audience in “Clown”.
In “Globe” a crazy Yingmei appears with messy makeup and plays with a small earth globe.
In “Happy Yingmei” she passes on different “wishes” to people which are all related to love, help and understanding.
Diary on 24th October 2022
During the project, I decided the direction of my daily performances according to the situation, like how on the first day, I performed “Clown”. There was an important reason for this choice.
This was so I could get to know more about the theatre, the other artist’s performances, and the audience. The whole plan of my performances is to travel through the theatre, interacting with the work of other artists, the audiences and the different spaces. Through “Clown”, I would get a feeling for the theatre space and the people involved, as well as their initial reactions.
Diary on 25th October 2022
I changed to a nude performance – The Fountain. Because I was naked, the audience could quickly tell that I was one of the performers. I walked gently holding a vase over my shoulder. I slowly approached one of the audience members in the scene and quietly moved the mouth of the vase to his ear and let him listen for a while, then moved to the next audience member’s ear so they could listen, and so on.
A girl’s very quiet, melancholic singing voice came out of the vase, bringing people into a quiet, calm and melancholic world, contrasting with the various noisy sounds in the scene. Different audience members reacted differently; some listened with closed eyes, some smiled, some looked surprised, but all of them were able to immerse themselves in the performance and experience it seriously. Although each interaction was short, I could tell from people’s expressions and looks that they enjoyed my work…
Diary on 27th October 2022
……
Early in the day, volunteer Tobias and I performed at the entrance of the main stage leading to the promenade. We sat on a small bench and smiled as we watched visitors walking out.
Usually, theatres have very clear boundaries between the stage area and the seating area. But for this event, the organisers broke that rule and removed the zoning. So when the audience walked out from the main stage and found themselves on our small “stage” again, they were surprised and delighted by the continuing performance, smiling back at us. Many people whispered “Happy Birthday” to me as they passed by, as Marina had told everyone in advance that it was my birthday. I was very surprised because it was the first time that so many people had given me birthday greetings. Then I enacted another performance piece. I was lying naked on the floor, facing the ground, with a screen on my back showing a video of the famous performance work
“To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain” (1995), created by the East Village Artists in Beijing. Many people had seen photographs of this work, but few had watched the video. I kept moving to perform it in different areas, such as the bar, the stage, the corridor, etc., staying in each place for about 10 to 30 minutes.
Diary on 29th October 2022
I decided to challenge myself again and try the performance “Research”. As a researcher holding a magnifying glass, I travelled through different spaces like stop-motion animation, interacting with the audience, other performance artists and their works.The magnifying glass not only magnifies the size of general things around me but also the subtle expressions and emotions of the audience in this noisy and dim theatre. Through the lens of the magnifying glass, it was as if I saw their inner world. At the same time, the audience could also see me clearly through the magnifying glass. In this way, I had a mysterious, marvellous and unique interactive experience with each person.