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Image: Long March 'Avant Garde' 2007, Courtesy: Long March

Long March projects for Performa 2007 included; Nov 7-10: Long March- Xu Zhen, In Just a Blink of an Eye (2007), Nov 10 - Qiu Zhijie, The Thunderstorm Is Slowly Approaching (2007), Nov 11: Long March- Avant-Garde (2007), Nov 14: Long March- Zhao Gang, Harlem School of New Social Realism (initiated by Gang Zhao, organized by Long March Project) (2007).

The Long March, also called ‘The Great March of the Red Army,’ 1934-1936 was a defining moment in Chinese history when soldiers and members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) including intellectuals and artists made a radically political move into the Chinese countryside; marching 8000 miles from Jiangxi to Sichuan via Guizhou over some of the country’s most remote and harshest terrain, in protest against the hierarchy of Chinese aristocratic rule and Literate society. Although the military project of the Long March failed, by engaging with, and harnessing the power of, the country’s rural majority and setting a new revolutionary agenda, The Long March heralded the onset of Modern Communist China and paved the way for Mao Zedongs’ influential twenty seven year reign as leader of The People’s Republic of China.

Miming the same collective structure, revolutionary spirit and educational remit of the 1934 Long March, The Long March Collective, founded in 2002 by curator Lu Jie, explores a distinctly Chinese notion of Avant-Garde arts practice; one that does not have to look outside China to articulate an idea of revolution or artistic change and goes beyond the oft quoted 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre as starting point for politically motivated contemporary art in China. The collective itself has 20 staff, over 300 Long Marchers and its activity includes International Biennials and Triennials, as well as a 20 step curatorial programme and Ghizou-based ‘curatorial summit’ camps. The Long March collective is also geographically embedded at the site of the original Long March; every year a group of Long Marchers – including both international and Chinese artists, curators and theorists - take to the countryside, walking together as a communal piece of live art from Jiangxi to Sichuan whilst marching in the physical and historical footsteps of their Red Army comrades. Along the route Long Marchers work with rural communities to collect research, create exhibitions, host workshops and keep the Long March spirit of avant-garde revolution and notion of ‘art for the people’ alive.

The Long March Collective might use the rhetoric and strategy of a manifesto’d military political party but they don’t want simply to become the latest Red Army faction to make the Long March across China. Rather, they want to use the revolutionary impact of the Long March as case study to explore the validity of contemporary art in relation to the public whilst interrogating the possibility of a contemporary art practise in China that is autonomous from Chinese state rule. With this, the Long March collective have its sights set firmly on the future of art whilst literally maintaining a foot-hold in China’s political past.

It is on this openly interrogative note that the Long March collective contributed to the PERFORMA 07 programme, playing host to a variety of live works. Long Marcher and international conceptual artist Xu Zhen exhibited In Just a Blink of an Eye at the James Cohen Gallery. It was a deceptively simple show in which Zhen made an ephemeral, live and – paradoxically – monumental sculpture out of the suspended bodies of two real-life Chinese migrant workers. The precarious free-fall position in which the two were suspended was an effective metaphor not only for the liminal status and uncertain future of the two Chinese migrants, but of the status and future of China itself.

Artist Qui Zhijie took a more militant approach in order to convey his message. His frenetic The Thunderstorm is Slowly Approaching was a Chinese Dragon Dance performance with traditional music and two important contemporary twists; the troop, including Zhijie, the dancers, musicians and the dragon itself all wore Chinese camouflage combats from head to foot, and the dragon chased, not a pearl, but a camouflaged fighter plane. The troop whipped up a crowd of followers in Columbus Park, danced through the streets of Chinatown and later stormed New York’s Asian Art Fair. By overtly re-asserting Chinese (military) identity in the polished and rather non-descript ‘Asian’ art fair Zhijie’s message was clear; the Chinese are coming.

Lu Jie, Qiu Zhijie and German artist Long Marcher Ingo Gunthe were slightly less fervent but no less openly subversive when they hosted Avant-Garde; a Long March workshop at the China Institute that introduced the Long March collective, explained its social remit and openly grappled with some important questions of how and why to go beyond ideology to initiate an Avant-Garde art movement in China. We were also given a glimpse into a certain Chinese mindset by Gunthe and Zhijie, who explained that the traditional Chinese notion of time is non-dialectic due to a lack of Greek philosophical and Hegelian influence, therefore historical progression and going -or looking- backwards are inextricably bound together in a way necessarily and radically different from Western philosophical thinking. This theory was then put into practice with a 100-strong line of workshop participants who completed a three hour backwards march from the China Institute down a busy 5th Avenue, through the Lobby of the Museum of Modern Art, ending at Times Square. By facing backwards whilst moving forwards the 100 ‘Backward Long Marchers’ performed the complex Chinese contemporary relationship to history that Gunthe and Zhijie had articulated. Moreover, by physically embodying this specific sort of Chinese backwardness Avant-Garde made it easier to conceive of the Long March Collective’s relationship to the historical Long March and to understand exactly how they (and now us) were attempting to create a new future past for Chinese contemporary art.

History was also at stake in the final Long March project ‘The Harlem School of New Social Realism.’ The school was initiated by artist and some-time Long Marcher Zhao Gang and took the form of an amplified open-air group discussion between various artists, theorists and critics of African and Chinese descent in Harlem’s Adam Powell Clayton Junior Plaza; a location at the heart of Black America named after the first African American Congressman that has played host to many political protests over the years. The question as to why African Americans should be involved in the Long March were- to my ears at least- left un-asked. However, heated debate about what form Harlem’s New School of Social Realism should take floated over the cold afternoon to the mixed interest of locals; some of whom were obviously more concerned with where their next hot meal was coming from.

The lack of understanding, or interest, displayed by certain members of the Harlem public is exactly what is at stake in The Long March’s Harlem School of New Social Realism; ie why is contemporary art not valid to these people, and if it isn't then how can it - or should it - it serve them better? This was the genuine spirit of enquiry demonstrated in all the PERFORMA Long March projects and it is a reminder that its work isn’t just for art’s sake; it anticipates real, public and social results. Combined, the work of the Long March Collective is also living proof that the Chinese are not only coming; they have of course already arrived. And with them comes the clear message that contemporary performance, be it from China or not, is still an important critical mediator for the political.

Rachel Lois Clapham

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Image Coutesy Hao Lang, VITAL 2007 The essence of performance, International Chinese Live Art festival, Chinese Arts Centre, Image by James Champion

Tuesday 20 November 2007
Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester
Part of Vital 07: The Essence of Performance International Chinese Live Art Festival

The gallery is darkened and a small performance space in the corner is marked by a semi-circle of chairs set at a respectful distance from a large mirror on the floor. Attractive reflections of light are cast on the walls, suggesting conventional theatre footlights. It is in this rather glamorous setting that Hao Lang performs as a super-kitsch figure in tight-fitting striped top and flower-studded bathing cap, his cheeks reddened with make-up so he is easily recognisable as the rosy ideal of countless garish propaganda posters and simultaneously recalling the camp of Busby Berkeley musicals.

The strident voice of an exercise instructor fills the space with motivational Mandarin, accompanied by rousing music to which Hao Lang starts his demanding routine. He stands directly on top of the mirror. And it is not reinforced or protected with a special coating to withstand the full force of his stamping, marching workout. It breaks with his first step. And he keeps on breaking it, until it is nothing but a slippery mess of vicious shards on which he persists with his routine.

The shattering, splintering sound contrasts horribly with the inspirational, perky music. It is chaotic, rude, uncontrolled noise laid over the relentlessly rhythmic and demanding exercise instructions. It is deeply unsettling and we have to watch with growing horror as Hao Lang slips and pitches forwards several times, coming close to terrible injury. There are many grimacing faces in the crowd. This is not an affectionate re-enactment of a happy childhood activity; the savagery of the breaking glass combined with the relentlessness of the exercise routine suggests punishment, humiliation, genuine endangerment and no fondness for the enforced physical workouts all schoolchildren in China have to endure. The mix of imagery and sound is nightmarish as all references are accessible and recognisable but unsettling when assembled in this way; the familiar seems unfamiliar and is made deeply sinister.

We see Hao Lang get breathless through physical exertion, we see flashes of fear in his flushed face as he stumbles and lurches frighteningly close to the splintered glass, we sit or stand horribly close to the shattered mess and try to inch away when the circle of shards begins to widen and threatens to exit the performance space in flying daggers towards us. However, we can't escape and we're trapped like Hao Lang in this menacing exercise, bound by an oppressive, invisible obligation to complete the task no matter what danger it puts us in. When it ends, we applaud with relief and can finally take pleasure in all those missed sessions at the gym: Hao Lang has proven that exercise really can be bad for you.

Hazel Tsoi-Wiles

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Image coutesy of Jenevieve Chang, VITAL 2007 The essence of performance, International Chinese Live Art festival, Chinese Arts Centre, Image by James Champion

21 November 2007
Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester
Part of Vital 07: The Essence of Performance International Chinese Live Art Festival

This likeable and amusing performance is to be enjoyed with caution. For all her levity, Chang is playing dangerously with several stereotypes of Chinese femininity and though she encourages participation from the audience, this too has to be approached with caution.

It starts innocently enough with Chang standing mute in the performance space, exuding an openness and friendliness that puts the audience at ease. Notices granting permission for mobile phones to be left on and freedom to cough, sneeze and shuffle anticipate a very different sort of performance.

As the audience settles and the room grows quiet, it becomes clear that Chang is listening very carefully and as the sound of traffic creeps into the quiet room, her body begins to react to it, very gently. Eventually, the audience grows bolder and begins to provide incidental sounds such as coughing, sneezing, jingling loose change in order to trigger more movement in Chang. We become complicit in her performance and the artists present, either briefed on Chang's performance or more willing to be explicit than the non-artists in the crowd, start to provide deliberate noises, singing, calling her name, jangling keys. More people join in and there is an extraordinary change in atmosphere when we collectively realise that without us providing the noises normally frowned upon in performance work, there would be no performance work at all in this case. Chang is our puppet and we can, we must, make her dance.

Chang's responses are humorous and spontaneous, changing in scale according to the sound provided. She is a confident and skilled performer and is able to inject wit and character into her movement but it is the constant reverting to coyness and coquettishness which is troubling. We are in control of Chang and Chang is willingly submissive, responding to whatever she hears with charm and openness. Apart from the initial notes granting permission for distractions, she does not do anything further to invite noises from the audience and can only wait for something to make a sound when the room goes quiet.

This is the level of her submission and it is impossible to escape the stereotype of the obedient Chinese / Thai bride so coveted by Western men for their assumed docility and responsive attentiveness at the sacrifice of their own comfort. The fulfilment of the performance is dependent on a complex contract made between the audience and Chang: between me and Chang, the contract is even more complex. As a British-born Chinese woman myself, I found the performance deeply discomforting, as if I had caught sight of myself smiling while subject to the whims of a braying crowd. The audience gleefully perpetuate the obedient Chinese woman stereotype by producing more sounds, literally making Chang dance at our command; the repugnance of this is smothered somewhat by the humour and wit of the situation but is something I will carry with me in my memory of this experience.

Hazel Tsoi-Wiles