Time: 20 - 23 November 2014
Location: OCAT Shenzhen, Enping Road, Overseas Chinese Town (F2 Building, Enping Road, Overseas Chinese Town, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, China)
Organizer: OCAT Shenzhen
Curator: Zhao Chuan
Acknowledgement: Cultural and Education Section of the British Consulate-General
Support: Shenzhen Overseas Chinese Town Corporation Ltd
Theatre Production Support: Shanghai Gumei Cultural Centre
Based on Grass Stage's new production World Factory and METIS' creation inspired by the same title, this project introduces and explores how Grass Stage, a collective in its 10th year since establishment, transforms theatre into a site for contemporary social studies and practice, and engenders dynamic local and international interactions. Revolved around the performance, this year's program will explore further into the subject with lectures, post-performance talks and seminars.
Program schedule
Performances:
20.00, 21 - 22 November 2014 (Friday & Saturday)
World Factory by Grass Stage
Pre-registration needed: please get the QR code as entrance proof through these links below:
Click here for the 21 November’s performance
Click here for the 22 November’s performance
Lectures:
20.00 Thursday 20 November 2014
World Factory as an International Interaction
Speakers: Zhao Chuan, Simon Daw
16.00, Saturday 22 November 2014
Grass Stage's Route to Social Theatre
Speaker: Grass Stage
Workshop:
14.00, Saturday 22 November 2014
World Factory Themed Workshop hosted by Metis
Pre-registration needed to participate: please send your application form to info@ocat.org.cn, and we will contact you soon
International Seminar:
13.00, Sunday 23 November 2014
The Exploration of Theatre as Social Studies and Practice: World Factory as an Example
Project Introduction
World Factory by Grass Stage aims at exploring the historical and geopolitical aspects of, and especially workers' living conditions in the global manufacturing industry from the emergence of ‘world factory’ to its current prevalence in China. The concept of this play originated from Zhao Chuan’s visit to Manchester, UK in 2009, and underwent 4–5 years of preparation. Based on the artistic experience and theatrical aesthetics developed over the past ten years, Grass Stage has incorporated materials generated from their discussions, research, documentation and workshops into collective creation, completed the play in mid-2014, and toured in several Northwest cities in China. Apart from exchanging with worker’s associations and schools in China, it has also spread the subject overseas, and began collaborating with the performing arts company METIS. Under the support of its director Zoe Svendsen, METIS started their own research and conceived their own production under the same title, which, in a British perspective, uses the textile industry as the starting point to explore the relationships of Britain and China with consumer capitalism.
Grass Stage was founded in Shanghai in 2005, with writer/theatre professional Zhao Chuan as its mastermind, and has since accumulated followers and influence. It encourages common people to participate in theatre and creative endeavours, and emphasizes the connection between artistic practices and everyday life; its members congregate weekly to discuss, hold performance workshops, and work on individual as well as group creations. Over the years, Grass Stage has made use of various venues to stage not-for-profit performances, forums and “culture outposts”. Their theatre has thus become a gathering spot for all kinds of people, and is continually creating fluid public spaces. Zhao Chuan once wrote, ‘to imagine a kind of theatre…first, it doesn’t come from the need for artistic re volition in formalistic terms but the need to improve the understanding of the relationship between theatre and people. The main concern of this kind of theatre is social life, not by ways of reflection but that of penetration and more substantial interventions, as question or even interrogation. Such reality is absolutely not naturalistic imitation, ingratiation or duplication. In certain way, this kind of theatre is approaching the truths of self, individuals, and social groups, and the process of interrogation is theatre which then becomes a method to reflect on life and its problems.’ (Zhao Chuan, “Interrogating Theatre”, Dushu, April 2006)