Tradition, Innovation and Modernity The Choreographic Aesthetic of Autobiographical Solo by Mui Cheuk-Yin

Tradition, Innovation and Modernity: the Choreographic Aesthetic of Autobiographical Solo by Mui Cheuk-Yin

Ting-Ting Chang, Assistant Professor in Dance, National Taiwan University of Arts／All Rights Reserved by Ting-Ting Chang© 2012.

臺灣舞蹈研究期刊 (第七期) 「傳統、創新和現代性：梅卓燕自傳式獨舞的編創美學」

作者：張婷婷／國立台灣藝術大學舞蹈學系專任助理教授 2012© 版權所有，翻印必究。＊引用請註明出處。

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「傳統、創新和現代性：梅卓燕自傳式獨舞的編創美學」

本文摘要: 本文專注探討香港編舞家梅卓燕的編舞美學，並進一步的探討梅如何藉

由當代舞蹈探索自我與文化的定位。香港現代舞先驅梅卓燕於 1981 年開始在香港舞

蹈團擔任首席舞者。於 1985 年贏得青年編舞大賽之後，獲獎學金前往紐約學習現代

舞。自 1986 年開始探索創作，並開始發表日記系列獨舞。從《日記 I-我出生於中國》

到 2009 年的《日記 VI-謝幕》，梅探索自身的舞蹈歷程，也反應了香港在文化與政

治上的環境變遷。由於梅在亞洲的卓越發展，她獲碧娜〄鮑許和福克旺舞蹈劇場的

邀請，創作《花落知多少》並在烏帕塔舞蹈劇場中演出《春之祭》。她作品的原創性、

辭彙以及中國文化元素獨特運用的方式，受到國際藝術界的讚賞，筆者藉由對其作

品的分析，討論自傳式獨舞的重要性。衍生自人類學家瑪莉莎〃布朗所述，身份定

位是由社會經歷而非文化與先祖所決定的論點，筆者以梅卓燕的作品為例，討論社

會與文化價值在英國將香港主權於 1997 年交還給中國之前與之後的變化。本文同時

亦討論香港由殖民地轉移為後殖民地，在回歸前後的社會變遷、文化價值以及複雜

的身份定位問題，藉由梅卓燕的舞蹈肢體看見群體的記憶。經由梅卓燕的編創過程，

研究她在編創傳統和創新之間以及舞蹈和跨界之間，如何成就獨特的梅式編舞美學。

關鍵字: 編創美學、自傳性獨舞、文化認同、創新、舞蹈劇場

Tradition, Innovation and Modernity: the Choreographic Aesthetic of

Autobiographical Solo by Mui Cheuk-Yin

Abstract: This paper focuses on the choreographic aesthetics of female choreographer

Mui Cheuk-Yin‟s autobiographical solos. Mui, as a pioneer of modern dance in Hong

Kong, started as a principal dancer in the Hong Kong Dance Company in 1981, and after

winning the Hong Kong Young Choreographer Competition, received a scholarship to

study modern dance in New York in 1985. After she returned, Mui started her solo “Diary”

project by exploring the form of dance theatre. From Diary I - I was born in China (1986)

to Diary VI - Applause (2009), Mui explored the history of her own dance career, and that

of the changing political and cultural environment in Hong Kong. With her success

developing dance theatre in Asia, Mui was invited by Pina Bausch and Folkwang

Tanzstudio to choreograph Whispering Colour, and to perform as a guest dancer in The

Rite of Spring with Tanztheater Wuppertal. Mui‟s work is internationally renowned for its

organic movement vocabulary and unique way of using Chinese cultural elements. By

examining her autobiographical solos in Diary VI - Applause, I discuss how Mui explores

the productive relationships between the role of tradition and the idea of innovation. I

also describe how Mui negotiates her personal and cultural identity through

contemporary dance. Expanding the argument that identity is shaped by social experience

- not culture and ancestry, as is commonly claimed in political rhetoric - I use Mui‟s solo

work as an example, and discuss how Mui‟s dancing body is an archive of a group‟s

collective memory of social and cultural value change before and after the United

Kingdom transferred its sovereignty over Hong Kong to the People‟s Republic of China

in 1997. By tracing her creative process, I discuss how Mui negotiates tradition and

innovation through her choreographic method and aesthetic vision.

Keywords: Choreographic Aesthetic, Autobiography solo, Cultural identity, Innovation,

Dance Theater





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Mui Cheuk-Yin was born in Guangzhou, China, and later moved to Hong Kong, where

she began studying Chinese classical, ethnic, and south Asian dance in 1973. In 1981, she

joined the Hong Kong Dance Company and became the principal dancer in Jade Love (Yu

Ching Sao, 1986)1, Yellow Earth (Huang Tu Di, 1988)

2, and Rouge (Yen Zi Co, 1990)

3. As

a winner of the Young Choreographers Competition of the City Hong Kong, she received

a scholarship to study modern dance in New York in 1985. After returning to Hong Kong,

Mui worked as a freelance choreographer, a dancer and a teacher. In 1990, she was

sponsored by the Asian Cultural Council to participate in the International

Choreographers in Residency Program at the American Dance Festival, while also

studying contact improvisation in New York. As a soloist, she has worked for numerous

different companies and was awarded the “Best Dancer of the Year” in 1991 by the Hong

Kong Artists Guild.

Mui, as a solo performer and choreographer, started her Diary Project by exploring dance

theatre in 1986. As Mui mentions in her article, Mui watched Pina Bausch‟s (1940-2009)

Café Muller and The Rite of Spring, which would have a lasting impact on her own

choreography (Mui, 2011). Since then, with Bausch‟s influence, Mui has developed her

own unique style of dance theater. With her great success in Asia, Mui was invited by

Bausch to choreograph Whispering Colour4(1998) for Folkwang Tanzstudio. Mui also

performed as a guest dancer in The Rite of Spring with Tanztheater Wuppertal in 1999.

Throughout the phases of her Diary project, including I was born in China5 (1986), I am

a Dancer6 (1987), Looking for Li

7 (1990), Here n Now

8 (1996), It is Too High to Climb

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(1999) and Applause10

(2009), Mui shares her personal stories, life experiences, and

memories. In her solos, she demonstrates the importance of an autobiographical solo and

the possibilities for its execution. She presents detailed descriptions of her personal

memories and her inner voices. In one of her solos, Mui describes how, as a teenager, she

had to merge different cultures and identities when she moved with her family from

China to Hong Kong. She also discusses her early dance training in a historical context,

and describes how the Cultural Revolution in China affected many Chinese artists who

were in Hong Kong at the time. These artists could not return to their hometowns in

China, and with unstable and limited job opportunities, some of them even taught dance

lessons to children for free. Mui was one of these children. With her strong Chinese

dance training and artistic influence, her work11

is internationally renowned for its

organic movement vocabulary and unique way of using Chinese cultural elements.

Furthermore, her work is also characterized by strong personal feelings, a full range of

emotions, unique characters and stylized movement.

As a pioneer of modern dance in Hong Kong, Mui premiered her latest solo work Diary

VI - Applause at the Hong Kong Performing Arts Center12

on November 5th, 2009. At the

age of fifty, she danced beautifully on stage and her story touched many people. Diary VI

- Applause was dedicated to the honor of Pina Bausch, after Mui heard of Bausch‟s

passing. In this production, Mui used elements that she had used in the past. Pulling

various solo works from different periods, she rearranged them into seven sections. My





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examination of Mui‟s choreographic methods in this work emphasizes three major solos:

Awaking in a Dream13

(1986), Eulogy14

(1995), and Lot〄us (2008).15

These were

choreographed by Mui in her twenties, thirties and forties. I discuss her inspirations, how

she uses props, and how she choreographs the image through her aesthetic vision.

In Diary VI – Applause, as the curtain lifts, the dimly lit stage is filled with cardboard

boxes, all the same brown color but different sizes. The varying heights create a layered

visual effect utilizing shadows and depth, and evoke a partly private space. Mui enters

stage left. She is petite with simple short hair, dressed in a black Mandarin dress and

short black heels with a small fan in her hand. Walking on stage in a simple and repetitive

pattern, accompanied with the occasional opening and closing of the fan, Mui dances

Awaking in a Dream. Listening to the pre-recorded soliloquy in this quiet space, Mui‟s

soft voice is peaceful and yet profoundly powerful in the darkness, as if it were coming

from the depths of her heart.

To have danced from twenty to fifty - is it a blessing, or a destiny? If I can live

my life all over once more, how do I want to live it? Is there something I really

wanted to do but have not done? Someone I really wanted to meet but have not

met? Or someone I really wanted to see again? I can still do Awaking in a

Dream for a number of years? I really want to do it, but somehow, it's not the

same? It's my body, or my emotional state, this is no longer the same. And it'll

never be the same again? So how should I dance it now? Would it be more

suitable to dance it when I'm sixty? And would there be... Can I go on stage still

when I am seventy, eighty, ninety? What kind of stage do I want? Who was it

that said „life is but a stage‟? (Mui, 2009)

On the backdrop, video footage of Mui dancing her Awaking in a Dream from 1986 is

shown, juxtaposed against her present movements on the stage, a contrast that transcends

time and space. Mui‟s movements echo her soliloquy, as if conversing with herself,

answering the verbal questions of her mind with the physical movements of her body:

Can a twenty-year-old body have a heart of a fifty-year-old? Can a

fifty-year-old body feel like a twenty-year-old? Is it better to have a

twenty-year-old body and a fifty-year-old heart? Or a fifty-year-old body and a

twenty-year-old heart? Since when have I begun to feel that I have the body of

a fifty-year-old? And what was it that I felt, and what is that I feel? If Awaking

in a Dream is a story about waiting, how can I convey the feelings of waiting?

Is waiting a time concept or a feeling of the heart? Waiting for someone, for a

scent, for dawn, for love, for a break, for a dream, for a dream-come-true. (Mui,

2009)

The original story of Awaking in a Dream is a chapter from a Chinese classical play The

Peony Pavilion, written by Tang Xianzu (1550-1616) during in the Ming Dynasty. It was

first performed as Kunqu Opera in 1598, and depicts a love story between Du Liniang16

and Liu Mengmei.17

The story begins with Du, who takes a walk in a spring garden and





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falls asleep. In her dream, she encounters Liu who in real life she has never met. After Du

wakes up, she becomes preoccupied with her dream affair. Her lovesickness consumes

her and she dies. The king of the underworld arranges a marriage between Du and Liu,

and for Du to return to the earthly world. When Du appears to Liu in his dreams, he

inhabits the same garden where she had her fatal dream. Liu agrees to exhume Du upon

her request and she is brought back to life. They finally get married and live happily ever

after.

Awaking in a Dream represents one of the most famous sections in this play. It is how the

romance starts. The story shifts between the dream and the real life. When I interviewed

Mui, she mentioned that her Awaking in a Dream was inspirited by another version

written by Kenneth Hsien-yung Pai18

(1937- ) (Mui, 2012). Pai‟s Wandering in the

Garden, Waking from a Dream, was in the collection Taipei People19

(1971), which

includes fourteen short stories.20

Pai explores the „stream of consciousness‟ technique in

his writing,21

which is associated with Western modernist novelists. According to Robert

Humphrey in his book Stream of Consciousness in the Modern Novel, the term „stream of

consciousness‟ was coined by philosopher and psychologist William James22

in 1890,

and the use of the narrative technique of stream of consciousness was fully developed

during the twentieth century (Humphrey, 1954, p.4). According to James, “the discovery

that memories, thoughts, and feelings exist outside the primary consciousness is the most

important step forward that has occurred in psychology...” (Humphrey, p.1). To define the

term, Humphrey explains that „stream of consciousness‟ is most useful when it is

applied to mental processes and it is reserved for the presentation of psychological

aspects of character in fiction. As a narrative device used in literature, stream of

consciousness depicts “the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the

mind. Another phrase for it is „interior monologue‟” (Cuddon, 1984, p. 660-1). In other

words, stream of consciousness, as a narrative mode, seeks to portray an individual‟s

point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character‟s thought processes, either

in interior monologue, or in connection to his or her actions. In Pai‟s use of the technique

in his story, Lan Tien-Yu, a Kunqu Opera actress in real life, performs Du Linaning on

stage. The story is about how Lan crosses over between herself and Du Lining in life.

In Mui‟s version of Awaking in a Dream, she continues to explore Pai‟s idea of „crossing

over‟ between one‟s self and another person, namely a fictional character. Expanding

upon Pai‟s use of stream of consciousness through her choreography, Mui attempts to

portray Lan Tien-Yu and express how Lan feels. Using the literary incarnation as the

basis for her solo, Mui spent a lot of time reading and tried to get a better understanding

of the underlying meanings of Pai‟s work. Mui not only falls in love with Pai‟s story, but

she also dreams about herself as Lan Tien-Yu.

Awaking in a Dream was the first solo Mui produced after she had returned from New

York in 1986. Mui started experimental work by exploring the possibilities for translation

between texts (from Chinese literature) and dance movement. By wearing a mandarin

dress and high heels, Mui creates a very Chinese feminine image with an S-shaped,

curved, body. She holds a paper fan, instead of the silk fan usually seen in Chinese folk





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dance performances. Since she had just began shifting from distinctly Chinese dance

practices to explore the world of modern dance, improvisation formed an important part

of her creative process, during which the influence of her folk dance training on her

personal movement style can clearly be seen. Mui also uses various steps from the Han

folk dance Yangge, including Huagudang23

(Flower Drum Lantern) and Jiaozhou

Yangge24

. The twisting quality of the steps adds a cultural flavor to the piece and helps

create an S-shape body line. Mui also plays with traditional fan techniques throughout the

entire dance. By exploring the themes of the literature through movement, Mui

foregrounds Pai‟s writing as a success in visualizing the actual performance of Kunqu,

and in the visualization of the percussion music. Mui chose Pingtan25

, a regional variety

of the Shuochang, as the music for this production. It is an art form that includes talking,

joking, instrument-playing, singing and acting26

, and with its unique singing quality, the

music also conveys a feeling of loneliness.

Mui successfully transfers the combination of traditional text, cultural dance elements

and music into a contemporary style. She deconstructs the Chinese folk dance

movements with her improvisation. While she portrays Lan Tien-Yu living in between

Lan and Du Liniang, Mui‟s dance can also be read as if she lived between herself and Lan

Tien-Yu. The large piece of mirror placed on the center stage can be seen as a symbol of

crossing over and transferring, giving the piece an extra layer of double meaning.

Specifically, the mirror, as a medium, has the real image of herself on one side, and the

illusion of Lan Tien-Yu in her mind inside the mirror. When Mui walks back and forth,

sometimes she looks at herself in the mirror, and sometimes she looks away from the

mirror as if trying to escape.

After Awaking in a Dream, Mui stands stage left, gradually emptying the various boxes.

Old shirts, pants, skirts and shoes scatter around the stage, as if fragments of memory

were coming back through time and reappearing in the present. Mui changes out of her

Mandarin dress and into a contemporary long sleeve cotton top and loose calf-length

pants. She moves slowly to stage right and sits in a chair. Her movements are slow as she

improvises with the chair and the space around her.

Continuing with her soliloquy, Mui says,

I remember the time I was first invited to perform in arts festivals in Europe in

the early 1990s. People would ask, where are you from? Hong Kong. Ah, from

Japan. No, it's not Japan, but a tiny spot at the southern tip of China. Then, as

we drew nearer to 1997, people would say, Ah, Hong Kong! So it will soon be

returned to China. After 1997, people now ask, How‟s everything in Hong

Kong? How's the creative environment? How‟s this, how‟s that… their voices

filled with concern and curiosity. There's always a moment when a place or a

person would be under spotlight. When the moment comes, are we ready yet?

(Mui, 2009)





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This soliloquy, from the section titled “The Long, Long Road,” shows how she, as a

choreographer in Hong Kong, presents her own cultural identity on the global stage. In

her work Lot〄us, a long piece of yellow fabric tumbles along Mui‟s feet as she gradually

zigzags from the back left of the stage to the front. The long piece of fabric, as if endless,

stretches along the stage as Mui frantically attempts to open it up with her feet and even

her hands. It not only represents Mui‟s long journey in dance, but also her endless

struggle with political and artistic responsibility throughout that journey.

The original Lot〃us was a nine-minute solo that Mui choreographed for Lily Cai, a

performer with City Contemporary Dance Company in Hong Kong. Talking about the

inspiration for the piece, Mui traced its creation back to the 1980s, when she had an

opportunity to work with a famous fashion designer, William Tang27

(1958 - ) in Hong

Kong. After one of his fashion shows, there was a large piece of fabric left from a

wedding dress, which he gave to Mui. The fabric was specially made with a unique

pattern created by machine pressing. Mui used the fabric in her choreography of the piece.

Later, she choreographed a full-evening length piece using three different colors of fabric

to represent different aspects of the lotus. Pink represented the bloom, black represented

the lotus roots and seeds, and gold represented the spirit of the lotus. Mui only used the

gold color section in this production but she re-choreographed it. The ways Mui dances

with the fabric was well rehearsed. She moves, places, opens out, rolls, walks, pushes and

turns with this piece of large and long fabric, creating a beautiful and epic image on stage.

Throughout her dance, Mui manages to find the ends of the fabric to roll or turn quickly.

How the fabric is maneuvered is actually the key point of the dance in this piece. Mui

demonstrates her ability to skillfully maneuver the long fabric, clearly reflecting her

Chinese ribbon dance training, though in a very different way.

The sixth section, Eulogy, is one of Mui‟s signature solos, which she has performed all

over the world. Mui was inspired by Chinese poetess Li Qingzhao‟s28

(1084-1151)

masterpiece tune: “Intoxicated Under the Shadow of Flowers.” At the time, Li had just

gotten married and the couple was separated in two cities because of her husband‟s study.

Li revealed her inner emotion and showed her deep love and longing for her husband:

Light mists and heavy clouds,

Melancholy the long dreary day,

In the golden censer

The burning incense is dying away.

It is again time

For the lovely Double-Ninth festival;

The coolness of midnight

Penetrates my screen of shear silk

And chills my pillow of jade.

After drinking wine after twilight

Under the chrysanthemum hedge,





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My sleeves are perfumed

By the faint fragrance of the plants.

Oh, I cannot say it is not enchanting,

Only, when the west wind stirs the curtain,

I see that I am more gracile

Than the yellow flowers.

(Li Ch'ing-chao /Li Qingzhao, Translated by Lucy Chow Ho, Ward, 2008, p.65)

The Double Ninth Festival is a traditional Chinese holiday for family reunion, and Mui

was touched by Li‟s verses written for that occasion, especially the last sentence “I see

that I am more gracile than the yellow flowers.” Mui uses Eulogy in memory of Bausch

and shows her love and longing for Bausch as well. By using Chinese style paper

umbrellas to dance with the snow, she focuses on how to create the wind in space. She

uses the umbrella to brush and to push, pushing the snowflakes so they float away in the

air. By controlling the energy and movement directions, Mui is able to make the snow fly

in certain patterns and shapes. When the white confetti dances on stage with each

movement of Mui‟s sweeping umbrella, the audience is transported back in time to a

snowy afternoon. As Mui embraces her umbrella at the end and waltzes through the stage,

footage of Bausch also dancing a waltz at a dance-festival party appears on the backdrop,

as if they were dancing together across time, the staging bringing their minds and bodies

together one last time.

As her soliloquy restarts, Mui says,

Over the years, every time when I took part in international festivals, I could

see artists from Taiwan, Korean, Japan etc. followed by a huge backup team-

arts agents, government cultural officers, reporters etc. And every time I was

there, I was alone. As I watched the others, surrounded by their huge team

which bustled about, filled with excitement and an air of expectation, I was

there, alone. An artist on delegation should be like a net thrown out into the sea.

Cultural exchanges need planning, preparatory work, connections, and media

reportage. The network is to prepare the way for future artists to be launched

out there, for more talents to be exposed. But we have failed on all counts.

Either the timing was bad, or we were just not good enough when the

opportunity knocked. I have to say this, no matter what: we have missed the

best of times! (Mui, 2009)

Thanks to their geography and history, both Hong Kong and Taiwan have intertwining

political and economical relationships with China. Due to Hong Kong being a British

colony from 1898 to 1997 and Taiwan being a Japanese colony from 1895 to 1945, both

societies have developed post-colonial reactions and feelings toward their former

colonizer or colonial „motherland.‟ Older generations of Taiwanese, like my grandparents,

were educated under a Japanese educational system and are able to speak Japanese

fluently. Although they did not like the Japanese military occupation, they were

nonetheless instilled with the values of the colonizer. Even today, they prefer Japanese





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food to Chinese and love products made in Japan. One cause of this post-colonial

reaction might simply be a feeling of nostalgia for an earlier period. Sometimes this

reaction sets in even before the colonizers depart. In Hong Kong, many residents who

identified more with the United Kingdom sold their properties and emigrated there, or to

other counties such as Canada, the United States and Australia, before Hong Kong

returned to China, almost as if they were “escaping”. Such people were also worried

about the loss of personal and political freedoms that they enjoyed under British rule.

In “Negotiating cultural identity through autobiographic solos: Mui Cheuk-Yin‟s diary”

(Chang, 2013), I discuss “how theories, nations, and nationalist movements can all be

imagined and created,” using Benedict Anderson‟s example of newspapers - what he

associates with “print-capitalism” – in western European countries (Anderson, 1991).

Anderson explains that the proliferation of newspapers, along with the use of specific

national languages, not only creates national cultures for countries, but also illustrates

Western hegemony and imperialism in a global context. In his argument, the rise of print

culture consolidated the European nation-state. Applying these ideas to China, one can

see how the state discourse of multiculturalism, television broadcasting networks, and the

official language, Mandarin, combines to perform the same function as Anderson‟s

newspapers. According to Anderson, “the convergence of capitalism and print technology

on the fatal diversity of human language created the possibility of a new form of

imagined community, which in its basic morphology set the stage for modern nation” (p.

46). In China, ethnic minority cultures have been promoted by the government of the

People‟s Republic of China as part of its national culture. The PRC government has tried

to draw these minority cultures together to create a unified national culture, a unified

sense of community, and a unified identity of „Chinese-ness‟ for its people. The

government builds its national self-image through the reconstruction of a national

multi-ethnic cultural identity.

In addition, sociologist Wang Fu-Chang agrees with Melissa Brown‟s assessment of the

situation and says that “Given the Chinese culturalist idea about what constitutes

„Chinese‟ as a national identity, or „Han,‟ as an ethnic identity, the leaders and people of

China will never agree that Taiwan has evolved into a culture so different from the

Chinese that it deserves a separate sovereignty” (Wang, 2004, p. 468). However, it has

been observed that although China clearly considers Hong Kong and Taiwan as properly

under its umbrella of Chinese-ness, both culturally and politically, Taiwan, more so than

Hong Kong, sees itself as unique enough to be considered different from China. The idea

to propose “Chinese” as a national identity, or “Han” as an ethnic identity equated with

Chineseness, does not solve the multiplicity of identity issues for people in Taiwan and

Hong Kong.

Although this intertwining political relationship between Taiwan and China is somewhat

different from the relationship between Hong Kong and China, from Mui‟s Diary I - I

was born in China (1986) to her Diary VI - Applause (2009), she clearly demonstrates

how she negotiates her own cultural identity before and after the United Kingdom

transferred its sovereignty over Hong Kong to the People‟s Republic of China in 1997.





8

Through dance, Mui explores the relationship between her professional and performance

history and that of the changing political and cultural environment in Hong Kong.

Applying Wang‟s ideas on Taiwan to Hong Kong, the leaders and people of China will

never agree that Hong Kong has evolved into a culture so different from the Chinese that

it deserves a separate sovereignty. As a compromise, the Chinese government has

promised that it will keep the same political, social and economic system for fifty years

from 1997. In 2010, when I saw Mui‟s Diary V I- Applause at the 7th Guangdong Modern

Dance Festival, a subtitle was added to the piece, reading “50, I think I can dance - Mui

Cheuk Yin.” This subtitle can be seen as a subtle dig at the Chinese government‟s

political propaganda in regard to the 1997 handover, or as simple gesture by Mui to

„remind‟ the Chinese government to keep its promise.

In Applause, Mui depicts the memories and stories of her generation in Hong Kong

through her unique body language, presenting them as a physical autobiography. Her

female dancing body clearly defines her identity and that of her generation. Many

choreographers in Hong Kong have tried to find their own voices through dance while

Hong Kong shifts from the colonial era to postcolonial era. Mui‟s Diary project is one of

the most successful solos that express specific postcolonial reactions. Her dancing body

carries her life experience, and has become an archive that represents a collective

memory of people in Hong Kong for the past forty years, especially the social changes

before and after the changeover of sovereignty in 1997. Mui‟s dance is rich in femininity

and delicately Eastern. She has been invited to many international arts festivals.29

As an

internationally renowned artist, her female dancing body clearly depicts the conflicts and

struggles of her generation, and delves into an honest examination of the issues of

marginalization, regional identification, and cultural identity. Through her choreographic

process, Mui clearly establishes her aesthetic vision in bringing new ideas to traditional

roles and cultural elements. Through her solos, we see her as very visually-driven artist

who can choreograph images in space. The ways she uses the props in her solos not only

shows innovation, but also clearly demonstrates her unique movement style and

choreographic aesthetic.





1

Mui Cheuk-Yin. (2009). Photo by Leo Yu. All Rights Reserved.

Lot〄us in Applause performed by Mui

Cheuk-Yin. (2009). Photo by Li-Yi Chen.

All Rights Reserved.

References:

Anderson, Benedict. (1991). Imagined Communities: reflections on the origin and spread

of nationalism. Revised Edition. London and New York: Verso.

Brown, Melissa. (2004). Is Taiwan Chinese?: The Impact of Culture, Power, and

Migration on Changing Identities. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Chang, Ting-Ting. (2013). Negotiating cultural identity through autobiographic solos:

Mui Cheuk-Yin’s diary. World Dance Alliance and daCi Global Summit 2012

conference proceedings.

Chen, Li-Yi (陳立怡). (2009). 瀟灑舞一回－看梅卓燕五十年不變舞照跳《日記 IV〃

謝幕...》. Macao Daily News. December 24.

Cuddon, John Anthony. (1984). A Dictionary of Literary Terms. Harmondsworth:

Penguin Books, p.166-1.





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Humphrey, Robert. (1954). Stream of Consciousness in the Modern Novel. Berkeley:

University of California Press.

Mui, Cheuk-Yin. (2012). Phone Interview by Ting-Ting Chang. Hong Kong. December 7.

Mui, C.Y. (2009). Voice Over Text. Diary VI – Applause. DVD.

Mui, C.Y. (梅卓燕). (2011). 舞台永誌翩娜名. Hong Kong Economic Journal. March 5,

p.37.

Wang, Fu-Chang. (2004). Some Reservations about Melissa J. Brown‟s is Taiwan

Chinese?. Issues & Studies 40, nos. 3/4 (September/December), p. 453-509.

Ward, Jean Elizabeth. (2008). Li Ch'ing-chao: Remembered. Luli.com, p.65.

1《玉卿嫂》 2《黃土地》 3《胭脂扣》 4《花落知多少》 5《日記 I - 我出生於中國》 6《日記 II - 我是舞者》 7《日記 III – 尋找李清照》 8《日記 IV – 此時此刻》 9《日記 V – 大衣櫃》 10《日記 VI – 謝幕...》 11 Her major works include Fragrant Garden, Water Music, E-motion, As Quick as Silver, Stories about

Certain Women, Eulogy, la grace, Between Bow and String, Of Grandeur and Desolation, Kinetic Body

Operatics, Pink Lily, October Red, Duet 3X, The Enigma of Desire-Dali vs Gala, Lot•us, Shui in Feng•Shui,

Desperately Seeking Miss Blossom, Season N in Seasonal Syndromes and The Tale of Miles in Triptych.

梅卓燕的作品包括：《遊園驚夢》、《滿庭芳》、《水音》、《白描》、《水銀瀉》、《關於某些女人的故事》、

《獨步》、《女相》、《弓弦之間》、《華麗與蒼涼》、《軀體亂彈》、《花葬》、《十月紅》、《3X2 體》、《情

男色女-達利 vs 加拉》、《流蓮歡》。 12 香港文化中心劇場 13《遊園驚夢》 14《獨步》 15《流蓮歡》 16 杜麗娘 17 柳夢梅 18

白先勇 19《台北人》 20 The length and art of each story is different, but all these short stories are about people who came from

Mainland China to Taiwan in the 1950s, and about their life in Taipei. 21 意識流 22

in The Principles of Psychology. 23 花鼓燈 24 膠州秧歌 25 評彈 26 It is a combination of “Pinghua”26 and “Tanci”26 which are two forms of Chinese folk art. 27 鄧達智 28 李清照 29 It includes Belgium International Arts Festival (1994), Re: Orient Dance Festival in London (1995), la

Biennale du danse de Val-de-Marne (1997), Ein Fest in Wuppertal (1998), Venice Biennial Dance Festival





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(1999), Dancing-World Festival in Copenhagen (2000), the Lyon Biennale de la Danse (2000), Dance

Biennale Tokyo (2002) and the Images of Asia Festival in Copenhagen (2003).

Documents

Tradition, Innovation and Modernity The Choreographic Aesthetic of Autobiographical Solo by Mui Cheuk-Yin