No End No Beginning

In the beginning,

there was no end,

the end was the beginning,

the beginning is the end

and

the end is the beginning of it all

Yue Dong and Stephen Harding present a performance No Beginning No End

a collaboration between two artist from different cultures. Yue Dong (DY) is a traditional Chinese dancer and I am a multidisciplinary artist researching performance.

The work we are presenting is a devised piece looking into ways of communicating without words, bringing together themes from our individual practices.

A common theme is the circle. DY dances with circles and I am exploring circular walks, lines, loops and vortices. We are both interested in mark making and our interested in how our bodies can make traces in space visable and invisable.

In our creative process we are acknowledging our emotions and how our vulnerabilities our surfecing through memories and states of mind.

We are intent on being honest with each other and in the performance. we want the performance to be real. A real experience for the audience so that it is visceral with energy and truth.

We are finding that with the sessions we have had that we are building a narrative that with the circle as a starting point has developed a narrative that could be read as a life cycle. from feotus and birth to a stillness and ash.

The sheeting material is our medium and tool fro us to work.

We are negotiating with this between us it gives us a tension and a place to inhabit

Literally and metaphorically.

In a Bag a performance by Yoko Ono

that I restaged at her exhibition at The Tate Modern

We have been reacquainted with Antonine Artaud

"I propose a theatre where violent physical images pulverise, mesmerise the audiences sensibilities, caught in drama as if in a vortext of higher forces".

Theatre and its Double p 63.

We would like there to be questions about the metaphysical, the unknown worlds beyond our vision and hearing. We want there to be a mysterious element of WHY. We are trying to allow our unconcious mends reveal our individuality to be present, so we can be true to our selves and make a performance that can be related to beyond entertainment.