 Hello, welcome to Kwok Talk. I'm Crystal here on Think Tech. Tuesday, rainy morning, we're gonna talk about layers. What does that mean? I mean, everybody has layers, yeah? You know, you peel them off. Actually, there's this really kind of a corny metaphor. I remember as a kid, I used that, you know, life is like an onion. You have to peel it layer by layer. And the more you peel, the more it hurts your eyes. Okay, I know. Sushi stuff. But in terms of the body, when we peel off layers, or yes, women, when we peel off layers, we're revealing more and more about ourselves and exposing more and more about ourselves that maybe it becomes to a point of vulnerability that we don't want to be in. But maybe it's a very good place to be in. It's a really interesting place to explore and today we're gonna do that with two amazing women who have their own layers and we hope to kind of expose their layers and discuss why. Why we as women have these things and why we are vulnerable in relation to our bodies and nudity and why all that is all kind of like this sensitive... I don't want to say controversial, but it is. People want to go there. People don't want to reveal themselves. So let's talk about that. Let's introduce our wonderful guest. Next to me is Charlotte Klinch, all the way from New York. Actually, I knew her from Hong Kong as a young, young girl and now she's all grown up and she's a teacher herself at a school for disabled students. Okay, young kids, very young. Yes, we go from pre-K to about grade six. Okay, so your perspective on life is very interesting. I'm going to tap into that in a bit. And again, so we have a very talented dancer choreographer, Shinru Yong from Body Portal Theatre who's actually doing a performance and I have the privilege of working with Shinru recently with this workshop, very interesting experimental workshop on how you feel about your body and more. So Shinru, welcome. Thank you. So let's start with the concept of layers. Do you want to talk about your own layers first on a personal level and what you think or when it is that you reveal yourself the most? Yeah, well, this is a big topic. I know. They weren't even going right in. Sorry. You want to go ahead? I think definitely having just graduated in May and moving to New York, what's made me have to tap into my own layers rather than kind of revealing it to other people, I think it's having to tap into and seeing that vulnerability from myself has been moving to a new city or by myself to start working and having those moments where I'm just alone by myself not having an institution behind me, my family's in Hong Kong, and having to start this new career and meet new people, it's those moments where I'm not doing anything and I don't have people around and I have to sit with just me and this feeling of being lonely but actually being able to really understand myself and see where I am at that moment. Yeah. It's been hard but also very, very revealing. And that reveals actually on the contrast is a lot of people are so consumed with their work or their lives, their routines that they don't have time to peel those layers and so they keep it hidden for a long time or never release themselves. What about you, Shinru? What are your layers? I really identify with that. I've moved around a lot on my own and it's super revealing, right? Because you put yourself out there. You put yourself out there in a new situation. You have to adjust. You have to figure out a new culture, a new language, all the nuances of that. So I think for me layers are something I take off and I put on based on the situation. I have these shields that I put up and then as I've moved around a lot I've noticed for myself that I don't take off layers unless I really feel comfortable and it takes me a long time. So that's for me personally and we talked a bit about this in the workshop too is that for my work it requires that I'm very outgoing or at least warm and friendly and a people person but I'm actually a huge introvert and I just want to hide away all the time. I really need my own reboot time. So that's a layer too. I have to do this in order to do the work that I really care about but then I like to put those layers back on and recharge. I think layers, there's so many kinds. I know. And as women there is a specific type too. It's so complicated and intricate. In the workshop again you mentioned how you exploring through the process of figuring out, discovering yourself in a particular type of dances as a woman and having a woman's body at what point do you strip off all your layers to reveal yourself and while not being exploited you know there's a real kind of a fine line. Oh it's yeah. Yeah because there's a spectrum. There's a spectrum of being an object and being a subject. And so where do you play in that? Especially if you're using your body in a performing setting. So whether that's music or acting but in particular dance because you're using your body as the medium. So I'm always kind of looking at where I'm intentionally trying to be because it's fine if you're saying look at my body, I'm a spectacle I'm going to entertain you. It's a nice place and it's completely valid. But then at what points do I want to say I want you to see me beyond my body but you have to see me through my body because that's how we're interacting and in everyday life too. So I think being aware of that being aware that there's that range is kind of where I start because everyone's always going to visually it's a visual art as well dance so they're going to use their eyes but then they're also for me it's about getting them to feel their own bodies through what I'm doing. So I think through the workshop you're seeing a little bit of that of the kinesthetic empathy. So beyond seeing my body as a woman's body and as an object you're also being able to feel what I'm feeling. So for example when I was dancing blindfold or some of the exercise we've done it's like you start to be in somebody else's skin and saying oh I know that this feels like that so I'm going to take them and have them feel that too. I feel what you're feeling and I think that's when that's when I make that choice and I know that people are touched and moved that way and I consider it success in that you see me as a woman's body and yet you see me as more than that and through the layers of all that. But that's it's something it's so subjective because as an audience you don't know you can't control the audience to say I want you to see through me through my past my body and past all these layers to reveal something else. How do you feel as the concept of a woman as an object let's place it into a kind of realistic situation going to a bar I don't know if you guys ever go to a situation where you're exposed to elements of contact and relationship possibilities do you put on a shield or do you release a little bit so that you can open up for people to want to contact you where are the signs how do you do that? I think that it's very hard because what's your the initial intention maybe and also I feel like the initial what you see first is someone's looks and someone's body and it is hard to have to just completely have that separate to getting to know the inside because as you said to really understand someone you need to go through their body first I think that it is very hard to kind of have those two separate situations and I think it's very hard for us as women to be okay with having that first layer be our bodies and being our looks and then understanding that after that comes what we have inside but you know in a bar setting I think that maybe a bar is a bad example it's such a superficial kind of you know environment that I feel like you can have like a great in-depth conversation how do you feel about the other extreme of covering yourself up and revealing in ways that you don't reveal I mean is there that well culturally let's just say because we have a common denominator of having lived in Asia Chinese people are very protective they have many many ways they never reveal it even to their families so how does that affect how we express ourselves you know culturally wow that's another kind of where I was right okay well let's hone in on that culturally the cultural concept because you know like nudity in here in the states everybody is so comfortable with their bodies that it's no issue right to touch and feel and to expose but in Asia it's like you don't do that no you don't yeah that was really hard for me when I first moved to Taiwan it was just you know you go in for the hug and then you know yeah you don't wish I can so for me it was very disconcerting that I wouldn't be able to say oh I've met you now and there's a moment of contact yeah so that I think yeah it's very cultural and I was reminded of that as I facilitate these workshops that everybody has a different sense of comfort in terms of how much they're touched and I think for me as a choreographer or as a workshop facilitator I just have to be sensitive and provide you know ins and outs and say if you're uncomfortable but is there some common denominator as human beings where we feel we need that to expose ourselves to know that touch is good you know while respecting certain cultural walls and boundaries common denominator I mean I always say we're always we're always we're all bodies moving through space and time so when people say they can't dance I'm like well we're all in our body you're still moving in terms of touch and I don't know because I feel like that is super specific like even someone said you know in some cultures you can't even touch someone else's head or someone's feet you know and it's I don't know what the common denominator is I do believe we all need to be touched and as babies you know that's so much your development is your sense of touch and contact and affection and it develops your sense of proprioception and all of that and balance you know but isn't it interesting that you brought up babies you know we are so embracing of babies we love to coddle them and everything but when you grow up and being an Asian baby you can't distance yourself from that after a while yeah no definitely so everybody starts off kind of the same but then we all end up doing different things with our bodies it's funny growing up definitely with my parents because my father is English and my mom she's Hong Kong Chinese I would definitely say like you know we were very open family and touch was like a comfortable thing in our family but from my extended Chinese family I think that definitely that was never there even though I was very loved by them it was never that comfort of hugging was a very brief kind of moment when you said hello and then when you say goodbye but in the recent years actually I have kind of introduced that to my family a little bit more and touch and being more comfortable with it I think with my grandfather with his old age he definitely is embracing it more but I kind of started to explore it when I started taking up yoga a few years ago and just understanding that I have these urges sometimes to be connected with my family or my friends when we're experiencing certain things kind of like you know me and my friends went to a concert the kind of like connection that I wanted to have with them while we were experiencing the same input was maybe to just you know put that like have like an embrace or hold hands or something like that where I feel people are very uncomfortable with it but once you embrace it I feel that it really does you feel this kind of connection you have to allow yourself to release it and it's interesting you mentioned yoga because yoga like dance or any kind of exploratory form of expression you want to release yourself a little bit more because at the art of dance and movement brings out the sensuality of a person and the ability to express themselves so we're going to take a quick break when we come back we're going to talk more in depth in how we treat our bodies and how we allow ourselves to be open enough to go that far to take in more you know what I mean okay we'll come back and talk about that this is Steve Katz I'm a marriage and family therapist and I do shrink wrap which is now going to every other week all during the summer and maybe forever after take care of your mental health this summer have a good time do what's fun and take good care of yourself bye bye Aloha and happy new year it's 2017 please keep up with me on power up Hawaii where Hawaii comes together to talk about a clean and just energy future please join me on Tuesdays at one o'clock Mahalo Aloha my name is Richard Emory host of condo insider more than a third of Hawaii's population live in some form of association and our show is all about educating board members and owners about the responsibilities and obligations and providing solutions for a great association you can watch me live on Thursdays 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. each week aloha back here and we're talking about our bodies and layers of things that we envelope and hold in and sometimes need to release so back to here with Charlotte and Shinru let's talk about nudity how do you guys feel about that and how much of that nudity is associated with being vulnerable do you equate the two Shinru what do you think yes and no I mean I'm quite comfortable with my body and I think like we were talking about it's a cultural thing so some people are very okay showing their skin it doesn't mean much it's other things that make them feel vulnerable and I think in my work as I was talking about with the body it's super revealing you're just there you're live if you make a mistake or if you fall or whatever there you are and so for me I feel vulnerable in my body but I also see that as its power okay let's talk about that so why is vulnerability a possible power because I think I think when you go into your weaknesses I don't consider vulnerability a weakness but I think when you go into those softer spots let's say tender or what some people may consider weakness when you go there you're not scared of them you're actually making friends with them and you're opening that so it's not a don't see this it's actually here it is there's nothing to be scared of and there's something really empowering about that process other people may still see it as weakness or as you know well that's a layer covering up their ability to confront that it's their perception of that but if you're saying here I am and you're owning that and it's part of you have agency this is me then there's you're not afraid of it so then it becomes part of your sense of self and your power if you want to use it that way and I mean it's very complicated in what you said like in a real setting of you know you're at a bar forget the bar we stress the bar so I said no and the performance or just in terms of my body how do I feel in my body and if I'm comfortable then of course I'm still vulnerable to external external things but being embodied and having a sense of comfortability I mean being at a certain level of this is who I am it's very hard to get to that point though right? yeah and it's even flow I don't think you know you stay there you don't want to stay there it's too tender you want to have a shelf once in a while especially in New York you need to have that I would say growing up they say that you're most sensitive about your body around like your teenage years becoming into your body in yourself through my whole childhood all growing up I never thought about body image or anything like that growing up in Hong Kong was very comfortable with myself and very confident in my life of university freshman year was okay but then once I think suddenly somewhere something changed in sophomore year my body was changing as well it wasn't you know a little girl's body anymore late bloomer sophomore and college I think it was more of kind of I was understanding that people compared themselves to each other we're in Hong Kong definitely growing up with my group of friends and the level that I had we didn't really see that but maybe also in Asia people covered themselves up more we had more layers there so you come to the states and everyone's all opening up to things and also I felt that the culture here was much more focused on working on bodies where in Hong Kong again there's two different populations and I was in this very small international population where I feel like the local Chinese they just naturally are very, very small and skinny whereas you know I had all shapes of sizes of friends because from all over the place but we never you know wasn't exercising and like dieting and all of that was never a thing but here and then I went to the states and everyone was like we need to go to the gym, we need to eat healthy like if you're not eating healthy like why you're not taking care of your body right and so that all kind of came in suddenly and I was like oh do I need to be doing this and like do I need to be looking at my body in a different way so your self-reflection kind of opened up explosively in the states what about the concept of transparency do you think that's the same as nudity no I don't think so like you mean transparency in the sense of you allow people to see the sides of you I think that's what I meant by you know just because you show your skin doesn't mean you're showing much you're revealing and I think and saying like people are very comfortable in the states I don't necessarily think so there's a lot of body image issues I'm showing myself but I'm really insecure I got it, good point so I think yeah being nude and showing showing is not necessarily revealing and again that's why we kind of contemplate the concept of layers because nudity is just one layer it's not what's underneath really it's not that simple is it how do we empower the concept of being intimate because sometimes I think intimacy is that kind of vulnerable space that people are very kind of susceptible to getting into like in a relationship can I do you mind sharing like you had a recent breakup and the reason for it can you just share that so we can kind of I mean it was a recent it was something that we you know started seeing each other and then it kind of definitely in the beginning for me what I was nervous about was I was very happy by myself and I know how to make myself happy and so I think letting in someone was definitely a barrier that I had to kind of reveal or peel off because once I could let someone else or something else kind of start being part of that happiness that I was creating I was very nervous that if that was suddenly taken away then it would be very hard for me to get back to just me being creating my own happiness and so letting someone in was definitely something that was terrifying because again it's like showing that vulnerability of budding someone else into your life and being able to create that happiness for you alongside obviously creating your own happiness but it was once that's taken away you know there's this whole other there's this gap where you're like okay now I have to fill that in again by just me. So you're comfortable you expose yourself if you will and allow somebody to come into your life but the point where you kind of like to take it somewhere further it's to kind of clarify where the situation is what's going on what are we then it's took them it's scared them away so what do you think that is about that vulnerability you know it's like why are guys so afraid of that type of revealing you laugh Shinru but it's just another old can of words clearly we can talk hours about this I don't know if it's a guy and girl thing I mean I think that's the stereotype for sure that women tend to be able to be more open or want to to go to that place of vulnerability and men maybe don't but I don't I don't think that men don't want to I just think that we all women men the whole spectrum we're all don't honestly have the tools to communicate what we need and how we need it but I think we all want that we all want intimacy whether it's with our partners or our family or our community there's a sense of wanting the same with touch like we all need it in some way we need affection we're social animals so I don't know I laugh because I think you know I wish I wish we all had more tools for that because I think we all want it yeah that's true we all want to reveal something I mean we all want to be seen and and understood and I think right am I right I would agree definitely I think it's coming into really accepting that that's what you want because I think that I think that there is this this almost like stigma to to wanting that for some reason a lot of people put up that yeah put those layers on because they don't want to to say yes I want that yeah I need that it's bizarre and I definitely you know I reflect on that a lot as well where I definitely think sometimes I'm like oh I don't need that from someone else I have it by myself I am very sufficient and able just me but you know it is it's something that we all we all want from something from someone else right as well and that goes back to the importance of vulnerability is to be able to tap into those feelings to say hey it's okay to feel a little bit soft yeah right we built so many shells on our on our on our exterior in our lives um Shinra I want to go back to your workshop because it's really it's really interesting concept of exploring um and why you came about this and and what this culminates to next week in your yeah um yeah how do I how do I sum this up so yeah I started off just exploring the idea of vulnerability and actually started with nudity so it's just the topic was nudity and we were doing creating I was creating a solo about that and then it started going into layers and vulnerability and then now I did a solo and do what version of that and now it's becoming a community workshop performance project where vulnerability and exploring that really got me into the topic of empathy so by opening up ourselves and saying I need this or I want this or this is who I am other people were able to feel me and I would feel them more as a performer in audience and then I also think live theater and live performance creates a sense of resonance in that moment that many of the other things that we use for entertainment or whatever do not like you know through youtube or screen you don't have the live interaction you don't have the feelings of breath and vibration so that's you know what I'm trying to do through this workshop performance project is through the workshop with the participants is saying okay let's let's experience this for ourselves and then let's open it up and invite an audience into that experience of the things we talked about you know the different activities of of breath of touch of being blindfold of trusting each other and then how do we bring audience into experiencing that as well yeah so how do you we'll see it's happening next Tuesday right and it's been really great to have you guys as part of the workshop maybe you can talk about your experience in it but it's so for me it is again about bringing people into an immersive experience not just saying hey look look at me dance it's not going to be looking at us as performers and them as audience there's not going to be that differentiation as much I hope is but inviting them into our experience and then seeing what they can't take away how can people buy tickets or be a part of this everything should be running on my website it's bodyportaltheater.com that's bodyportaltheater t-h-e-a-t-r-e dot com and it's happening next Tuesday at Kakako Agora at seven o'clock and nine o'clock there's going to be two shows and yeah it's a great space I don't know yeah it's an amazing space they provided a lot of community programming for the last couple years and they so come and join them it's really really interesting and it's a really it's a real treat to be engaged with the intimacy of yourself and others and Charlotte was involved with that and thank you for coming to Hawaii to visit and share your experiences and wishing everybody be in touch with your own bodies and your own layers and it's okay to peel them off because it's good get some fresh air and some places that never see the sun so thank you for tuning in and again support them and good luck with all your stuff in the future right thank you