In the Cloud Creative Process

Text: Chan Wai-lok

It is a choreographic journey that invites and involves participants to make their own interpretations with their archives, with the aid of text, visual images and spontaneous sound effects.

Inspiration

It was back to the times when most of the social activities were prohibited or suspended. Performances and public events were cancelled or turned to online. As a performing arts artist, it very often comes to me what is the urgency for creation at this particular time and space.

Under the pandemic, physical performances are turned online. While many of us are habitual users of social media, already abundant of pop culture and entertainment, what is the position of performing arts in such online social platforms? Do people who scroll Facebook and Instagram really watch and pay attention to online streaming? Even if they do, are they really engaged in it without distraction? Does communication exist in these online performances between the artists and the audience?

At this particular time (when people are bound to be apart) and space (with a lot of social distancing measures), while we have been desperate for social life, can a work allow people to meet up intimately and trigger a real communication between artists and audience?

Note: The inspiration of the work was developed in early 2022 during the outbreak of the fifth wave of Covid-19 in Hong Kong, in which the social distancing measures were tightened and might not be applicable to the current situation.

Research Phase

Under these circumstances, at the very first instance, In the Cloud was a project that aimed at re-gathering people to engage back to a truly communicable channel during a pandemic-restricting situation and it brought In the Cloud to research phase, where 16 artists and scholars (“the invitees”) from various backgrounds were invited to join the research.

The research was conducted in a 1-on-1 setting, where each of the invitees came to a private studio to meet me online, instead of meeting online at our own home or in person. It was a response to the social distancing rules and unusual theatrical audience experience (watching performance through a monitor). We did meet each other but we were in a different place. Unlike many online performances or residencies, it encouraged and created impressions and experiences that the invitees are really going to somewhere to be engaged, instead of staying at home and turning on a computer.

The research phase invited and provoked discourses on the invitees’ observations and imaginations on performing arts practice. The discussion covered when they came to know about “dance” for the very first time and how they thought about “dance” and “art”. Not surprisingly, all their answers were different. But interestingly enough, they gave answers from their own archives. Some came to know dance from cartoon clips, TV shows and pop music videos. Some considered dance and art the same thing, but some pointed out that dance without concept could be craftmanship, while art is something with inspiration and/or shared experience that evokes resonance.

It came to my attention that for the invitees, who are actively engaged in various art forms (whether or not they are conventionally trained), their consciousness and concept on “dance” and “art” can be very different due to their own archives.

On the other hand, as the discourse was merely conducted in verbally, while performing arts are highly associated with bodily movements, the discourse inevitably generated different key images by imagination based on our own archives, even in the same discourse. For example, when we talked about a cartoon character’s typical movement, the images in our brain can be (a bit) different if our recollections on that movement is different. Sounds affect how we perceive information, how we recollect memories from our archives, and ultimately, how we imagine and interpret the sounds.

Transformation into public engagement

From the research phase, “archive” is the keyword. It provides insight and inspirations for moving In the Cloud forward into the public (participant) engagement phase, where text, visual images, and spontaneous sound effects trigger the participants’ own imagination and interpretation on movements based on participants’ own “archives”.

During the research phase, we also discussed that audience seldom perceive a performance from the eyes of a performer. This also leads to this public engagement version, where the audience is put in a position where they undergo a “performing experience” without moving around to perform.

By contributing their own archives, their unique imagination and interpretation create an intimate journey for public to experience “performance” from a performer’s perspective – it becomes their own work.

I’d like to thank the following participating artists and scholars for joining the research phase with me:

• Chan Wai Lap (Visual artist)
• Kerry Cheung (Dance artist)
• Dong Yan (Scholar / Researcher / Dramaturg)
• Jonathan Hung (Dance artist)
• Lawrence Lau (Sound artist)
• Joanna Lee (Scholar / Art Critic / Producer)
• Carman Li Ka-man (Dance artist)
• Sudhee Liao (Dance artist)
• Frieda Luk (Dance artist)
• Alice Ma (Dance artist)
• Ngai Wing Lam (Visual artist)
• Larry Shuen (Sound artist)
• SuenNam (Dance artist)
• Dick Wong (Dance artist)
• Paula Wong (Dance artist)
• Yau Kwok Keung (Visual artist)