William Yang came to campus this week to perform his autobiographical work China for the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. In spite of the sparse set, the story Yang embarks on is lush and evocative, like sitting down with your favorite cousin (and 300 audience members) to watch the best vacation slide show you’ve ever seen. Yang, in his measured Australian accent, uses a precise but unscripted storytelling style to bring the audience along with him through subtle revelations, cultural observations and spiritual realizations.

Ubyssey: Tell me a bit about yourself. Where are you coming from when you create an autobiographical performance?

Yang:  I am a third generation Australian-born Chinese. I was brought up in the Western way, partly because my mother wanted to position me in the mainstream where there was more opportunity. She had bad experiences being Chinese and she was trying to protect me from racist attitudes. It wasn’t all my mother’s fault that my Chinese side was denied and unacknowledged. When I grew up in the 50s, the prevailing cultural attitude was for everyone to assimilate.

When I was in my late 30s I embraced my Chinese heritage. Going back to China in 1989 was the culmination of that process. It was all a journey of self-discovery, which I experienced first and then turned into a narrative performance.
I made the first trip in 1989 and had already done a slide show….It did well, partly because of the timing.

Tianenman Square was in the news, and there was a curiosity about China. But I have been back several times since then and I always document my travels. I have some kind of end product in mind when I take the photos. I have certain sequences in mind.

U:  What is your goal when you write your performances?

Y: Actually I used to write them, but now I talk to them straight off. It’s different from writing them, it’s more direct. Always I want to produce an entertaining piece. When I set out to make a piece I start off looking at the photos and see if a story emerges. A story is important to hold the work together, although I have done pieces with very loose structures. China was easy in a sense because it was all about the one place, so at least it had unity of location.

U:  Can you tell me about the form of China’s performance?

Y: I stand in front of two big screens on stage and talk—actually, I prefer to say I tell a story. On the screens are digital projections of my photos, and at times in this production there is video. My musician Nicholas Ng, who is also gorgeous, sits with me on stage and he plays erhu (two stringed Chinese violin) and pipa (Chinese lute), although not all the time. I use a quiet tone of voice, and with the slides coming up, people have told me the effect is hypnotic.

U: How do you think that slides and storytelling constitute contemporary theatre? What do you think this achieves that a plot-based narrative with multiple performers would not?

Y: In contemporary theatre as in most contemporary forms, anything goes. Image projection has been used in more than half of the productions I’ve seen so it’s very common now. Storytelling is a very old form….My form has partly evolved out of economics. It’s a lean form, there’s only me, a musician and a production manager on the whole team­—no director, dramaturgy, or lighting designer. So it achieves what it achieves economically. I don’t think it achieves more than “a plot-based narrative with multiple performers.” It’s a different form in its own right. To use a musical analogy, I do see it as a trio for spoken word, image and music, as opposed to larger forms like a symphony.

U: Your sexual identity seems to be one of the focuses of your photographic works. How, if at all, does this play into China, and your situatedness within the “outsider” narrative?

Y: I am gay, so I am the gay narrator in my stories. That’s partly political as I want to be visible, although I wouldn’t say it was the focus of my entire pieces, only the sexual aspect. In fact “China” is not a very sexual place, that is, in general the Chinese are discreet about sexuality. The gay content is small in this piece.

U: China was first performed in 2007. How has the show changed between then and now, February 2010?

Y: Usually my shows change and evolve over time. Some of them change quite a lot, but China has not. There are always slight changes as the piece becomes more honed. My attitude has not changed much. I have been back to China twice since 2007 and I was tempted to put some of my experiences from these trips into the piece but decided against it. I’ll put them in another piece.

U: What do you think has captivated audiences most in your performance or performance style?

Y: My pieces are very accessible and direct. They are about things and issues, and most importantly feelings and emotions…People have liked to come along on my journey, and in the case of <ital>China</ital>, the journey is through a fascinating and a very different culture from Western/European culture. People have described my pieces as “touching,” “elegant” and “hypnotic.”

U: PuSh is partially funded by the Cultural Olympiad. What do you think about the Olympics coming to Vancouver mere days after your performance?

Y: Glad to be part of the circus.

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