Ping Chong’s archive on stage

Foto credit: Ping Chong Company

Reviving a show after 25 years can mean to reinvent it completely, especially in times that move at such a speed. And yet, says Ping Chong[1], the avant-garde director who re-staged his 1985 piece, Angels of Swedenborg at LaMaMa in the current season, some things remain unchanged. In this case, what stayed the same are most of the choreography of the piece, the music and the slide-show projected on a screen in the back of the stage, which was only slightly adjusted to “accommodate” the new digital era (among drawings of fantastic animals things like TV, computer, I-phone and others where included).

I don’t know how did this piece spoke to its audience in 1985, but it seemed to be designed for today’s homo media and address his particular problem: the gap between the daily life routine and the forgotten needs of his soul. Which is the humankind problem from all times, the only thing that changed is the content of the routine and the tools we need to establish it. So the question asked again and again on the digital read-out placed on one side of the room - “Where is the seat of the soul?” – is as pertinent today as ever.

Emanuel Swedenborg was a Swedish scientist and philosopher living in the 18^th century who wrote 30 volumes on what he called “my visits to Heaven and Hell”. Ping Chong discovered him through Borges who dedicated a chapter of one of his books to Swedenborg. The anecdote Chong shared with the audience after one of the revival’s shows in New York[2] is that he needed a title fast and, since he didn’t have any idea about what show he will do next, he just picked a book out of his shelves and opened it: it was Borges and the title of the chapter was “Swedenborg’s Angels”. From this point to start imagining how the Heaven and the Hell look like was just one step.

There are many layers in this non-verbal, highly choreographed, heavy meaningful production. One has to read them moving from one action to another, as there are permanently 4 or 5 things happening in the same time on different parts of the stage. As much as this could seem unheard of in 1985, today’s multitasking spectator doesn’t really have a problem with this.

In an office-like small place on the left of the stage a young white man – who introduces himself as Swedenborg, mentioning he is a pride owner of a luxury car, an I-Phone, an I-pad and a list of other digital products one can find in many houses today – is fighting his demons. He is a writer, sited on a chair at his writing table[1] and trying to make sense of the world by analyzing instead of feeling. What happens around his writing table, including the dance with the Devil that mimics his gestures takes place within an oblique space compared to what we call “reality”. Ping Chong underlined in his observations at the end of the show: “People today are over analyzing things all the time. That is why I didn’t want my performers to analyze or use too many words. I wanted this to be an experiential thing.”[2] One has to stand up, leave his writing table, so that one can see and feel what’s beyond dry reality, looking at it from a different angle.

The second space is dedicated to the Angels, uncanny presences dancing in a pool full of white feathers, and constantly fighting temptations as well. Dressed all alike, in grey long coats with a pair of wings on their back and white wigs, their faces effaced by porcelain masks, the Angels are dancing a choreography of boring happiness, while the short apparitions of the Devils are more interesting. Devils are wearing beast-like masks and are picking strange white fruits discovered between the feathers, they are mimicking the man working in his office and they get to watch the thing called TV together with this creature they are clearly interested in. While Angels are confronted with temptation and have their peace menaced by a colorful glamorous diva that is trying to convince them to abandon their safe net and when they do abandon themselves into her arms they get punished by having their wings cut, the Devils and the man seem to resonate with one another. That is until one of the Angels takes the man with him around the world and makes him see the various degrees of unhappiness in different places, while two voices simply enumerate countries.

Meanwhile, on the digital read-out in one corner of the performing space a couple of phrases are coming and going in a loop and they end up looking like strange “digital poems” – “What all these have to do with the lightness in the brain/ or with the soul?”, says one of them, while others are mere enumerations of specific places in the world and architectural landmarks all over the globe – places where Angels or Devils can descend as well. Another phrase, which can give the key to this abstract painting-like performance sounds like a quote from Swedenborg’s sayings: “While I was working for my De Animal Regnum writing, strange visions visited me.”

Strange visions re-visited director Ping Chong in the 48^th season of the company he founded and in the 50^th anniversary year of LaMaMa Theater where Great Jones Company, the resident group who used to work with late Ellen Stewart, is trying to find a new way to reinvent itself after her passing away. The new artistic director’s idea is to invite outside directors to work with the group, giving their different input and using all the experience the group has gained in years. Working on this live archive[1] revival, which is meant to preserve and enrich performance history means taking one step to the future while looking back as well, which can mark a great new beginning.

 

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[1] Ping Chong started to work in Meredith Monk ensemble, The House Foundation, as video-artist who studied film-making and graphic design. In 1972 he started a career on his own, staging more than 50 avant-garde productions

[2] An artist talk took place after the representation of Angels of Swedenborg, 11^th of November, 2011, at LaMaMa Theater.

[3] The writing table doesn’t seem the same simple thing after reading Sara Ahmed’s view on it, (in Queer Phenomenology) as a metaphor for the patriarchal central-viewed position that misses the things happening aside. A lot of things happens aside Swedenborg’s writing table too.

[4] Declaration made at the same artist talk[1] Ping Chong’s assistant mentioned in the same artist talk that there is a Ping Chong archive available at the New York Public Library, but they had to translate the existing materials to the digital format. The costumes where re-designed following the same line as in 1985 and the slide-show projected was completed, so that the imagery of the show be updated.

[5] Ping Chong’s assistant mentioned in the same artist talk that there is a Ping Chong archive available at the New York Public Library, but they had to translate the existing materials to the digital format. The costumes where re-designed following the same line as in 1985 and the slide-show projected was completed, so that the imagery of the show be updated.

Reviving a show after 25 years can mean to reinvent it completely, especially in times that move at such a speed. And yet, says Ping Chong[1], the avant-garde director who re-staged his 1985 piece, Angels of Swedenborg at LaMaMa in the current season, some things remain unchanged. In this case, what stayed the same are most of the choreography of the piece, the music and the slide-show projected on a screen in the back of the stage, which was only slightly adjusted to “accommodate” the new digital era (among drawings of fantastic animals things like TV, computer, I-phone and others where included).

I don’t know how did this piece spoke to its audience in 1985, but it seemed to be designed for today’s homo media and address his particular problem: the gap between the daily life routine and the forgotten needs of his soul. Which is the humankind problem from all times, the only thing that changed is the content of the routine and the tools we need to establish it. So the question asked again and again on the digital read-out placed on one side of the room - “Where is the seat of the soul?” – is as pertinent today as ever.

Emanuel Swedenborg was a Swedish scientist and philosopher living in the 18^th century who wrote 30 volumes on what he called “my visits to Heaven and Hell”. Ping Chong discovered him through Borges who dedicated a chapter of one of his books to Swedenborg. The anecdote Chong shared with the audience after one of the revival’s shows in New York[2] is that he needed a title fast and, since he didn’t have any idea about what show he will do next, he just picked a book out of his shelves and opened it: it was Borges and the title of the chapter was “Swedenborg’s Angels”. From this point to start imagining how the Heaven and the Hell look like was just one step.