 Hello. One. Yeah, hello. Hi. And live. Hello everybody this is again the Segal talks and my name is Frank Hedgekram, the executive director of the Segal Centre here at the Graduate Centre CUNY in New York City, New York City, which is a ghost town. is closed, theaters are closed, clubs are closed, restaurants, like so many places around the world and we decided to create the Segal Talks so we know what questions these situations pose us for artists and how can we create meaning in this time and also what can artists do to create a meaning we need, as always, to listen to them. I think we also need to find a space to really think what is happening and to processes. We are so overwhelmed with everything. We had our start yesterday of the Our Talks, the great Taylor Mac and Kristin Martin from the Heer Art Center in New York talked about their new initiative, which was that brilliant idea of Taylor to have a kind of a Netflix for performing artists. People pay $10 a subscriber base, support artists who will be commissions to do work and people can go online and see up to 50 different artists creating something. We said yesterday already Brecht said we all need new theater for new times we live in and he did theater for the children of the technological age. We entered the digital age, it's dancing and it poses so many questions and we heard about the situation in New York, people are out of jobs, what they do, how they survive, how they are. Now we have the great opportunity to hear from Hong Kong and China on the situation there. The Stiegel Center is a global center we bridge academia and professional theater, but always international in the American theater and we have done that for over 10, 15 years. Now we have with us here Shuyi Liao, a choreographer from Beijing, we have Hunchen Feng from Beijing and Mark Xiu Yuhaz from Hong Kong who has been an activist for a very, very long time. So welcome everybody. Thank you. Hi, can you all hear us and maybe let's start with the situation in China, Hunchen, maybe give us a little account of the atmosphere, what's happening in China and the performing arts and in the theater scene? Well actually things are eventually getting better even in Milan now, you know schools are going to open and then people are returning to their jobs bit by bit. Beijing here on the other hand is slower than other provinces because this is the capital and the strategy here is more rigid and conservative. But speaking of performing arts actually it's still, you know, nothing here, nothing in Milan, nothing in Beijing of course and it's not a good thing. You know for theater people it's not just a post, I heard someone said you know that the post button has been pressed but it's not just a post, it's a totally shut down, you know, because certain people in Beijing they are a lot of them are just independent artists, so situations go wrong, they're really doing to, you know, experience this severe phenomenon, so it's not a good time and the national theaters on the other hand they're quite okay but still they're losing money now because they're not open to the public. So after all people are trying to ask for help from the government, they're hoping the government will reduce some taxis, provide some stipends, right now we don't know what would happen. And still I'm not sure how many theaters are there in Beijing but I think approximately there are 300,000 seats in Beijing and they're all empty now and the theater will not open until May. That doesn't mean we will reopen the theater by May, that means we will have to make another evaluation by May. So my guess is you know the theater will keep closed for a long time. We got a question from a listener, we by the way have our email you can write to with questions at seagulltalks, talks with us at the end at gmail.com and Yun Tian said how do people in China engage in this theater during this plague? What do they do? How do they engage with the world? Yeah that's a good question. If you want to say engage into theater actually you cannot engage into a real theater because the theaters are all closed but of course you can engage into our real life. You just said you know this is a digital era and the whole world is changing and the theater is changing as well. We have this famous cell phone application called TikTok, I think that's also quite famous in the Americas and people are shooting short videos, short dramas and upload it to kill time and kill pressure which is precisely what we need during this plague. And yeah I think the whole situation is more immersive now. The whole world is a theater every day you wake up in the morning and you switch on your cell phone and a lot of news has popped up and it looks like they're trying to throw a drama right in front of your face and tell you okay this is the drama for today, react and people will do this you know maybe online talk maybe maybe even fight you know fight a war that doesn't exist and this is the way they how to the the engagement to the drama show here today. I think we seem to have lost Shu Yi Liao maybe she will be back soon but of course we have with us Mark Shiyu Yuhaz who is a director, artist, festival organizer for many years over decades, a staple of the theater scene in Hong Kong. So Mark give us a little atmosphere what's happening in Hong Kong? Well the situation is getting more serious actually now you know just several days ago you know people like 60 or 70 000 people came back to Hong Kong from England, Europe and the United States for example and and all of a sudden you know the number of positive you know COVID-19 cases you know have jumped actually today is around about 700 and and this is stretching you know our medical facilities and that you know there are people who found they are positive you know in the test they had to stay home for two or three days before they were actually admitted to hospitals but we haven't closed down everything actually all a lot of restaurants are still open except that over the weekend the government has decided you know that people should not gather together in four more than four actually you can four of you you know can go to a restaurant and then you know the tables had to be 1.5 meters you know separated. Yeah couples are separated but how is the performing arts scene is there what's happening with the performers the actors directors playwrights what do you hear what how do you stay in contact and what's well actually there are still people rehearsing and there are people who are thinking yet that may can be okay for performances right now of course the government once again closed down all its theater and its sports playground recreation centers and so on and all the cinemas are to be closed or have been closed so theater people you know they well all the international tours and exchanges had to be stopped you know we cancel for example our Hong Kong arts festival and and we ourselves you know had to cancel a tour made up of some 12 young people young in the late 20s and early 30s you know last September they actually gathered together in northern France and they devised a play called the spice road and which was to actually this this guys are to were to reassemble at the middle of March in Nepal to rehearse again and then make their South Asian tour different cities and then came and then they would come to Taiwan Hong Kong and Mattel but you know our French director he arrived you know on about 14th of March and he discovered then actually that our actors you know even from India were not to were not able to go into Nepal and then people from other father places you know like from Uganda from from Egypt from Peru you know they were going to go to Kathmandu and they would get visa on landing but this was not possible anymore not possible tell us a bit about the theater we had to defer the tour now hopefully you know from from January to March 2021 from now tell us a bit about what company is rehearsing and what play are they doing do you know the artists who are rehearsing and how does that work they have a rehearsing studio and they can stay together in the larger group yeah yeah um they they stay to yeah they they can work you know our offices are open our workplaces you know are open for work and even if there are more than four people you are not liable to be prosecuted but one thing very interesting actually is that the Chinese University of Hong Kong which runs a department of cultural management they were to stage along the edge festival and then they decided you know because of these events it now has become a digital festival which is going to happen late April and then until early May good send us the link we can post it on our website and on they they would be very interested in having people from the US you know to watch yeah yeah I think we are all in this together and there is we share in a way our also the loneliness and also which is up there now and the kind of feeling of one of the groups I'm involved in is the cinematic you know theater company they actually were looking forward you know to go to california or san francisco to join the san francisco international arts festival but now cancel and cancel again you know is rehearsing a play and it depends on the situation because they are going to perform in this theater which is not run by the government so it still is in operation so in two or three weeks time you know when they actually stage this uh uh play they they actually you know uh would be selling tickets you know to those who are brave enough uh to come to the theater wearing a mask and then you know so the distance and safe distance yeah and at the same time you know uh having a hand wash uh but at the same time again you know they they try to engage professional uh people to live them uh to to what's the word live stream stream stream yeah live stream yeah and what they do is that you know they manage to find a platform through which you know people can pay to see uh to see that yeah the live stream uh you have a choice of either risking yourself at the theater paying 200 dollars hong kong uh or paying 80 dollars for the live stream show live stream show great yeah and also have a look at you know that what taylor mac and christin martin in new york created uh taylor mac mostly it's on um trickle up nyc.org that um kind of netflix model based and i'm sure they would be interested to have views from hong kong and maybe they also can look up um for your side so i hope that this will be a good enough distance between the spectators and it's safe um we have all have to uh acknowledge realities but let's ask shuyi liao can you hear us yes yeah and maybe speak a tiny bit louder um or the buzz up and so um from you from as a personal you are a young choreographer you are based in beijing yes i'm based in beijing and um and so tell us a bit what is the situation if you have earphones it's easier to put it on or speak a bit louder so we hear you um can hear me now as yeah that's better um so my situation is like uh like because i'm a free lancer and many project has been cancelled or postponed rescheduled so um in this specific uh period of time me personally i i was already dead or at home for two months so two months yeah almost two months i think and many of my theater friends uh have similar life as me it's like uh we live with the family or individually and maybe do some individual practice um so what do you mean individual practice you dance or yeah for me yeah for me for example i focus more uh as my body as the only medium now available for me so i observe myself my movement uh my daily life more and i do some solo practice every day so every day i have my uh small topic small thing to look at so i try to develop based on the individual um body yeah so what's the small what's the top what's the topic for for example today or yesterday what is the topic you look at for example um i look at uh different system of the body that for example the the skeletal from the skeletal perspective or through the fluidity of the body or through the organ the gland the more inner side or um or some the articulate some very small uh subtle thing or for example very simple walking standing i just try to bring all the uh concentration more uh in world instead of out world yeah and you rehearse in the living room or outside in the garden or where do you do the movements most of the time i use the living room and not everything but one week i will go out like two or three times so i also do some outside outdoor improvisation in a park close by or um the parking lot or just in the yard of my apartment what what are you i tell you one very interesting thing you know that's happening in hong kong with the dancers you know uh whether they are professional amateur actually you know uh nowadays you know everyone in hong kong has a mobile phone which can record so you dance at home okay and you upload you know what the small fraction to someone who coordinates this someone will will get you know the short dancing segments you know all together and she will add it all together and then you know she will put it on youtube uh for everyone and these are these are not just professional dancers you know they're just can be just common people so the invitation is to all uh actually yeah so they have been doing this you know several times already i just so go ahead please i just saw a piece from mathogram dance company and this is actually from the video it's like one dancer do a small piece of movement and they try to make it together as the whole piece so they try to do it in their living room or in a garden and in different backgrounds so but the sequences can be uh smoothly getting together so i just saw it today yeah but uh shuyi has a question what two months being in an apartment as an artist who is chose dancing for movement in space to be at home what did it do to you what does it do to your mind to your thinking how do you look at the world i found a very interesting thing is before um my perspective in terms of creation is more about the style or aesthetically preference if i want to start a piece but since the two months uh in the apartment my perspective my concentration my focus change i become not paying much attention to athletic preference or the style or what's kind of original contribution for this particular style or is filled um this kind of thing before i think is very important but for these two months i felt is not important i become more come back to the simplicity to the root or to the initiation of movement or of the body consciousness or just really go back to the root mok how long are you also in isolation or do you go out in hong kong well we have been doing uh home office you know since how long since how many since February uh quite a long time you know and and there's a lot of things you know that can be done at home you know and the artist you know uh they they can read they can watch you know things on on on tv and also your internet and so on all of a sudden actually you know people are telling you hey uh it's on the online you know uh who's uh mahabrata by peter brock or einstein on the bridge you know by robert wilson or all this great ballet you know done by bolshe ballet company and and of course you know we now can of course go to your website and see a lot of things you know there are many things you know coming from different parts of the world uh from the us you know and also uh from hong kong actually you know there's uh uh so many so much things to to be done actually in at home um uh well of course you know uh one of the things uh that everyone is thinking of is going digital you see uh what do you think about it what normally from the first to the third of may we're supposed to be organizing you know the 10th anniversary of the hong kong international deaf film festival but of course now it has been postponed but meanwhile you know we have these seven rooms in a hotel booked for five days okay and we could not get refund so what we are going to do is that i have invited seven people uh people who do storytelling people do performance art people who do theater people who can compose song people make video and so on you know seven of them they will stay in the hotel taking the place of the visitors you know it will stay in the hotel and they each you know will do a performance 15 minutes for four days and and this will be live streamed also yeah uh so this is kind of taking the inspiration from uh deca maron deca maron okay the bocaccio tale which was written in the play times yeah yeah that's right you know instead of you know 10 people telling one story for 10 days we have seven artists doing their own thing 50 minutes for four days and then you know the other thing i'm thinking of actually you know in this virus this epidemic or pandemic you know make us think about you know that in future you know we we should be focused on uh digital creation and i i i am not i'm talking about you know uh in a communal way all right community uh part of what i do is community art you know that means you know gathering people together doing things you know but in this times you know how can you gather people together except in the cyberspace you know so i think you know we can learn from you know the digital storing approach we should be telling people or educating people how to use your phone you know to make to photograph or to to make films and so on and how to transmit it through soon so that you are not alone i mean i hear stories of people who continue to do whatever online dating they meet new people but they don't meet them in person they meet them on skype they won't see them and have artists uh done that in hong kong or i'm basing a question to all of you do artists who do not know each other have forged uh new connections or do you're saying this is reinforcing only um not only but enforcing um networks that are already in place that is a little bit hard to answer because you know uh i don't i don't know their lives but i know there is one there is one show that is still ongoing now perhaps the only one in mainland china uh which is a government sponsored play uh about this it is happening now it is happening now it's happening on stage with bodies on stage or digital oh actually it's not it's quite like what we are doing now here you know like we're doing this this this online rehearsing you know let's say i'm a i'm an actor so i'm going to perform in front of you and you tell me where i do wrong where i do right and the others you know the same situation and uh uh they are rehearsing it in xta you know online shanghai theater academy in yeah they're doing it now uh but i don't tell us about the play do you know what it is about well it is about the name is called as let me think the dairy of a nurse i think that's that's the you know english name so it's about a nurse who is in the in the in the uh during the outbreak working in the hospital and what she saw what she feel and how things get worse and how things get better yeah it's all like a dead dairy you know but it's a quick job you know the writer wrote this whole thing in a very short period and now they're rehearsing it they're doing they're doing the online rehearsing but nobody know what will come out you know what the outcome will be because you can't you can't be in person but i i'm i'm also not sure if they knew each other i mean this group not sure about that and does the government created this to create jobs for artists as you said it's government sponsored there it is from an arts fund in shanghai or the university pays for it how does they work well i think that the government pays for the for the for the whole process but it's not like to to to create more opportunity but i mean it's a it's a good example to test if we can do this you know long term online rehearsing online dancing online staging but it's just a test you know there's a prototype and the news about this show is not too many so i can not find more information about it i'm not sure if things will work out or not you know so there there's still chance that this thing will just you know break and that's it comes out it's very interesting i mean to our listeners again we have our seagull talks at gmail.com if you want to send in questions but i think this comment brings me to an important question um can we just go on and do theater like we we did or also what would a theater look like for that healthcare workers who are under extreme stress right now should be something created for them do we think of them as audience have also theater people have we forgotten about them the workers you know as much as most probably politics current police have left them behind at least in america for a long time and the healthcare system has been stopped so also what has theater performance done in that whole thing that fraction idea for the workers for the people do you do you feel um there should be a new connection also to the people who are now really essential we are not we are close life goes on um they are so what's will that change will we create work and if so what would that look like i think that you know art workers you know are a quite vulnerable group in in in society actually you know in hong kong there are quite a few theater workers who are freelancers now uh you just now asked about government support uh actually you know in hong kong the government has lots of money we have lots of reserve uh being accumulated services you know over the years and also you know you might know that the hong kong dollars are backed by american dollars that the banks you know issuing hong kong dollars uh they actually have to have american dollars of equivalent amount so through that exchange fund you know we also have a lot of american dollars so there's a lack of money in hong kong and of course you know it's it's in a way you know doing its duty by offering relief to the art workers uh you have to apply if you are successful you get seven thousand and five hundred dollars which is about one thousand american dollars as a kind of relief for over the period uh have you gotten that me yeah no no no i i have worked for three you know all these years for some time now but anyway my organization as as a group uh we get three months uh rent not uh having to pay you know uh the the art center so this three months rent you know amounts to 120 hong kong 120 thousand hong kong dollars so it's four thousand dollars a month actually uh 40 thousand dollars a month it's it's five or five thousand american dollars so that that three months rent have been waived and so that's quite and then also as a group that employ you know a lot of people well say when i say a lot you know we actually have about seven people who are paid and we we also get the another uh chunk of money which amounts to 10 000 us yeah shuyi how is it for you as their support for for your work for your freelance dance work before corona and after corona can you give us a little uh insight how that works for you in Beijing um yeah as a freelancer before and after i think is quite similar because we we survive for we need multiple work to sustain and like so me for example i do i i teach i coach um actors for uh other theater companies i this is a sum of income for me and i also do i work as a performer so i earn some money for from performing for other people's peace and in the end i create uh i call i do some choreography for my own so this part is the most not for profit part personally so i have to use other sources of money to support this part of me as an independent artist i think many independent artists have the similar situation like me sometimes uh luckily we we can have some fund uh for some specific projects for example some theater festival um uh but it's limited so i think basically multiple sources yeah some some we can get some of the funding and a little bit from teaching a little bit from other uh work so yeah i think it's i'm sure you are in contact you know with your fellow artists whether they're i think directors or choreographers and dancers or actors what is the mood in Beijing what do people talk about how do they see the situation will that are they hopeful that it will change past will it be um a real uh uh interruption uh and not just a temporary pause what what is the mood and the feeling between artists well for me because i i don't really talk with too many people um but firstly for me personally i felt uh one month ago i had the i had a feeling or expectation it's like on march or april everything will go back to the normal but things getting changed gradually and so far i i don't have the expectation like i felt it's gonna be a really long term long a long journey so it's not like sort of go back but it's really like it's a kind of unknown future it's it's not about go back for me now so um for me i really spend a lot of time in terms of observing instead of doing or try to figure out the solution and i really want to find out the what is the necessity to making art um for me now becomes very important instead of i want to do this i want to do that a new project but now i'm trying to figure out the necessity what did you find so far what is what is the necessity what do you think it is um so for first is what i mentioned before i i really thought i don't have the strong impulse as before to think about the aesthetically preference the interesting not very as strong as before in that level so now um i felt i would like to figure out what is the nature or what is the real resonance between different community what is the the real connection or the common resonance some simplicity um not very fancy things or not even artistic like but something um something simple but really hardcore i felt and for some of my friends i talked with and some of them they've changed their original schedule for example they want to do they have a theme they want to they have a plan for this year but since the situation like that they don't have the mood to continue the theme topic so they would rather to talk with people talk with people from different discipline and try to understand uh what's their situation uh what's their attitude they found is more important than to uh insist their artistic work so for me i'm also open now for this situation instead of to trying to figure out what i'm going to do i would like to more listen and to hear what's happening now both outside and inside of myself that's an important important discovery and to really go through for two months and to stay to listen and to observe and to connect to the inside instead of that onslaught normally what comes from the outside of news and work and emails and so but do you feel you will be fundamentally changed as an artist when you come out of this in the very early stage i don't feel it but more and gradually i felt it might fundamentally change that is what i said the next the necessity i really think about it what it is that i don't really have an answer for now but really the necessity become a question for myself um man chen um you have been to new york also in london um what is your evaluation of the contemporary theater scene also the pre-scene experimental scene or in china um is this a something that pause now will also help to reflect to think do you think it was good before or what could be what could be different or what could be also come out of this crisis that perhaps might change as shuyi said you know that she will be changed will the theater be changed in beijing after corona will it be like it was before well actually theater will be theater is forgotten now you know in beijing so theater will be missed in the near future so from my perspective i do think it will fundamentally change it's really i think something i don't think it will be i don't think it will be fundamentally changed but i think some small changes will happen you know like this this online programs you know online performances i did uh i did a show like six years ago in 2014 that's that it's the first o2o theater play in china back then it was not that successful but now take a look at tiktok you know that's maybe o2o you mean online to online to offline online yeah but you know tiktok may be a more mature type of this uh this kind of play uh but no one speaking of theater theater is changing since theater never stops changing since there's total so uh yeah but theater is is still theater i mean when the when the when the virus just gone i'm sure it will be gone theater will be open and the people will miss it people will flash back into the theater for a certain period and that's for sure and for your early question i i i think you know as far as i'm concerned the the mood around artists are quite complicated you know uh some of them are quite upset yeah they are upset about yeah i mean actually a lot of them are quite upset about about the situation you know they're losing money they're losing jobs so as a matter of fact that they join the online fights you know they try to figure things out by discussing with people and another group they are more peaceful in mind you know they're maybe like Shu Yi you know because they know this is another real fight that we're talking about here the real fight is it's out there in the hospital undertaken by doctors by patients you know i heard there there is there's a nurse in spain or italy i don't recall who was just a committed suicide you know due to the pressure so if you ask them they will certainly give you a different answer so this is another real fight what we are reacting now it's uh some social and cultural problems caused by the virus like frustration uh discrimination ignorance etc etc so we'll we'll need to find a way to deal with to deal with those problems with art with theater uh i am currently working with some friends who are not so upset who are quite positive about the situation and we're trying to create an online program uh maybe next month something one month later or or so we're trying to discuss there's also an online discuss like this we're trying to discuss how do we uh defend ourselves with theater in the play and that is uh one of the no positive ways to deal with the the situation yeah we talked about it yesterday that perhaps as a result of this crisis that theaters of European big theaters with ballet opera and the drama that there might be a new division of digital theater or digital drama that will be as a given you know as there will be playwriting there will be ballet and there will be perhaps as a as a box of its own and that offer crosses over but it will be perhaps become a mainstream what now is performed and done by by experimental artists that one day it will be uh normal to to to have that what is the role at the moment what do you think what does the Chinese theater make up apps also experimental money where do they fit in in society do you at the moment is that and also before what is the what is the role that art art plays in contemporary Chinese society well experimental theater in china has always been like like like the new leader of this army that they're trying to expand the the definition of theater through the uh experimentations of its form you know and i have a friend who's really like into this cyber space you know cyber show he's doing a lot of you know online shows maybe maybe i remember Peter Brooks said you know in the in the space there are two people one is watching another one is walking through and that's a theater but she is definitely talking about a real space where we can breathe where we can stretch our legs but even cyber space a real space now you know we're actually living in uh in uh in a cyber world so but i don't think it will be a mainstream because you know uh take a look at china we we sort of defend this this this virus in a very short period you know only two months now we barely have any domestic new confirmed cases in in mainland now so i think the the tradition is it's still a strong stream now the mainstream will not change in the in the in the near future and for the for the avant garde artists they're quite in a dilemma because you know if you don't act if you don't perform yourself you will be forgotten quickly because you are i think there you are not i think there are many different kinds of art workers or theater workers you know there are people you know who who look at you know art for art sake you know and then you know there are people who really who want to use theater to change the world i mean i talked about this group of young people they actually uh were to tour this piece the spice role they're not just talking about history but they're talking about the contemporary world what's wrong with it uh they talk about refugees they talk about you know democracy revolutions in egypt and elsewhere uh so like for example i i have a group of performance art friends people do performance art you know and just uh on the 22nd of march you know at the equinox spring equinox you know they went out to do performances in the streets and this is supposed to be a day of international solidarity when performance artists you know will actually do art pieces that supports freedom and democracy that's that's the the commitment they have as performance artists in hong kong so there you are uh just now you talk about workers yeah workers of course you know uh they they they can be workers in the in the uh in the western society the workers in hong kong and there are different levels of workers you know some well paid some actually are facing the loss of their jobs like for example a lot of restaurants are closing down and these people are out of work and then of course you know we have the homeless who are very vulnerable at this time and this several hundred of them actually has been staying at night at the 24 hours madonna okay restaurants but now the madonna restaurants have been closed after six or eight or something all right where do these people go and the government has decided that nothing should be done or can be done so there are other other people elderly uh people who live under very crowded condition they don't have even the money to buy masks they don't have the money you know to buy things that watch that you're supposed to wash your hands right and they don't have money to buy so talking about digital cinema digital uh theater you know it's it's really something beyond them you look at india and other parts of the poorer world where where are we mock what do you have a hope do you have a hope for theater in Hong Kong that something comes out of this that might might be good instead of just all that i think you know a lot of artists theater workers you know they're under the present circumstances they're undergoing some kind of reflection about their own lives about the role of art in society about what kind of art to be done in future um i must say that you know that the stage is not just you know inside a black box or a proscenium theater the stage you know as as han chang said earlier you know he wakes up every morning he sees theater all around but in hong kong are we not aware that you know that well before the corona virus since june the young people and the people of hong kong have made themselves on a world stage okay and this world stage you know they say you know we want democracy we want freedom and now they say we want transparency uh and so on okay so even just today there are young people who went out just now okay uh in a kind of uh uh commemoration you know they brought flowers to a mtr station a metro station you know where seven months ago you know the policemen of hong kong brutally and this indiscriminately you know beat up people inside the trains yeah i mean after this uh epidemic or pandemic is over you know hong kong people it still has this stage to go back yes um i just want to say we get an email from janis poon who who commented on the hong kong situation and said the companies who tried to continue their rehearsals all were masks during rehearsals limited the number of actors in the rehearsal room one theater company named um onandom theater workshop is broadcasting a radio play this week and target to conclude the performance with the live performance in june so what they show now digital will then be shown live but most of the rehearsal activities have stopped i do remember one scene in a great video about an architect who uh studio who said instead of building the library they were supposed to build the library in the community they said very early on digitally they they shared the ground plans the different plans they decided to do the one they decided on then the material and then um how it's going to look like they shared the digital models how it was constructed and then when people in the community came to see the library they knew the library they were part of it in a way so perhaps you know that idea um also that hong kong does to rehearse to prepare to share it and then at one day everybody had come it might also be something that can be done or perhaps might also change a way of making theater normal the rehearsal process the process itself is hidden we think it's so important many theater artists actually say it's just a process that has to stop to finally open something they would like to go over but i think there are many many things to explore for you guys to the new york community or u.s community or european community what would be important for theater makers in china now was there something you would like to hear would like to have get help what is of interest and what could could be done and on something you would ask the global theater community who is listening surely yeah the hong kong people you know they they have been making contacts all over the world you know and in some places they're more successful than the others you know and they even got you know donald trump to uh to finally sign you know that uh that uh legislation about human rights in hong kong anyway uh do people rehearse with mask i think so uh they they wear a mask at workshops as well okay uh but the workshops you know where you actually uh do things face to face it only reasonably stopped okay um we wear a mask and from the very early on you know we learned from happened 17 years ago when sars happened and our medical doctors told us that we should wear masks yeah we were really surprised that the western people you know they they didn't wear at all you know and and then some people uh say that you know you only have to drink walker and uh and do sauna actually you know and then you will be rid of corona virus so so that's good advice yeah maybe to all the all the listeners all the artists do wear mask when you go out there's a lot of research that suggests it might help not to spend but also not not to get before we close down we are close to the end maybe we can donate if anybody wants to donate something to mocks organization in hong kong um we will have the um uh uh information on our website and on hull rounds thank you for joining us but maybe in the last minutes tell or what are you working on how do you keep your mind busy what are you reading listening and also is there a project what you are pursuing anyway what you work on right now um shu yi maybe we can start with you uh you mean what i'm reading for example yeah what are you reading what are you listening to and what project are you working on besides observation is there a concrete project you are working on well uh basically basically i'm concentrate on the uh body consciousness so from different perspectives so every day um actually i have a schedule is like some i some books related to the fundamental foundation of the physical body and some of the body mind centering based practice and some of the body consciousness philosophy so i have different layers and perspectives to look at to concentrate to the body and so i divided a day into different sections to to look at them so you do the movements but you also read thank you mark is there what's your project you are really working on at the moment and what do you read and what are you listening to oh uh today i listened to a song you know send through the internet to me it's it's it's uh it's an italian song it's called uh well is it called anyway it's devoted to bagamol uh where a lot of people die from epidemic you know that this is still sort of very uh beautiful song that i like actually but i is in italian uh it's called i i i am reborn you are reborn you know one of the 70s song actually right and then i read actually is um something called the um the donut economics i think you know we really have to think hard about you know how capitalism goes or how our economy off to go and i think rainbow economics you know provides a good good answer actually uh and then the project i'm working on actually you know different projects you know which are installed uh that are stalled actually you know we have this play called uh it won't be known now it's about you know japanese uh prisoner of war camp actually inside and outside and we're to take it to south korea the adam raw festival and so on and and and i just wonder if it would happen and then we have this play called you know the um the the white shadow is about about a ghost you know in this area called sanctuary pole where i live and it's through the ghost you know she sees past persons and and the reason you know the fighters of of uh democracy and so on you know this is the uh shown one way or the other but then you know uh in this area there is a temple nearby not really far from where i live you know it's called temple of the third prince the third prince you know happened to be a a deity and he was invited to hong kong uh from somewhere in china and he was becoming the resident god you know in this temple the reason why he was invited to come to hong kong was because you know there was a play okay it was a play at the end of uh the 19th 19th century yeah amazing so uh i want to do a play about that you'll play about that that's great hansheng what's on your mind oh actually in order to prepare for the for the online project i'm currently rereading albert cameo and artel now seems like only in the in the time of play can you understand the artel's theory yeah yeah i think judice miller from n y u she once wrote over in exchange she said we all live now in artodian times but we have to stay on the right side of madness and not go to the wrong side of madness so thank you all again for coming joining us here this is important that we hear from hong kong and china we are connected all together we share the suffering and and also the joy i think of being alive and this is an important conversation tomorrow please do tune in the great tomas austermeyer from shall be in a buladin will be with us well we have tiato del alba from italy they are based in ravena ermana and marco will talk about life in italy what it means to do the danta project just now a 700 years after it was written and then we have to a great toshiki okada from japan who moved his family out of tokyo after the fukushima event and very much the environment and is on his thinking so i can't wait to hear what what is on his mind so again thank you for participating and sharing your experience and i hope to see you all in new york one day under in life so again thank you so much and thanks to hall around thank you for hosting us and emerson college and our supporters at the seagull center and to your listeners i know there's lots to do even so we are in our homes some have even more to do than before they feel so thank you for taking the time to listen thank you goodbye thank you thank you bye