Make China Great Again Tour

The US has its MAGA movement, lead by their current president, which might be described as playing to a myth of national revival. I'm not interested here to what extent that is hyperbole, I simply want to start by noting how powerful a force it is. Similarly, the UK has its Golden Age that gets endlessly recycled in costume dramas and which, it could be argued, played a role in Brexit and its aftermath: take back control! China has something similar: a two pronged fork with the revival of traditional culture on one side and the championing of innovative industries on the other.

This performance took the form of a short tour from point A to point B: From Huawei to KFC. Conventional wisdom might imagine the journey should be the other way around; you start by copying lower quality foreign goods and finish by manufacturing your own high quality products. That is of course the model. The reality is a little more complicated. You, and I don't simply mean China here, I'm thinking of revivals more generally, you start with your culture and you construct a self-serving version of it that never really was. The final result is often somewhat kitsch, watch any Chinese costume drama or better still time travel drama for in these we truly get the contemporary eye. 

This tour was given quickly so as to avoid interference with security guards. Not that it was breaking any rules in particular, but experience has taught me that ambiguity is not something that security guards deal in and when there is a foreigner involved, it can get complicated. This was a get in get out sort of tour for a small group, delivered without any sort of framing dialogue. None was needed. 

The Spontaneous Combustion Tour

Spontaneous Combustion was conceived as a site-tour of Nanjing to prepare for a performance festival next year. In true Last Minute Live Art style, it turned into something else.

When we assembled at the famous Gulou roundabout we were asked to sign a declaration that stated LMLA was not responsible in the case of spontaneous human combustion and we were taking this tour entirely at our own personal risk. 

We then vacated the busy street for an elevated park tucked beside Gulou. The tour began with a rapid-fire manifesto reading of sorts: what Last Minute Live Art is and what it has done. That over, we each produced and showed one another objects as we'd all been requested to bring one with us.

We then set out towards our first destination, the supreme court of the Republic of China back in the 1930's, now a dilapidated ruin, a testament to being on the losing side of a civil war. At the back of it was a tennis court fallen into disrepair, thick with a carpet of leaves. Here we made improvised performances: walking, pushing, rearranging, looking, showing, balancing and so on. 

After a solid lunch of noodles we made our way to the second site, the River Yangtze or Chang Jiang as it is known here. With no particular agenda we just hung out by the river and started playing. Each of us did this in different ways, sometimes alone, sometimes together in groups. This slowly granted the group a sense of permission.

Somehow we ended up in a tug-of-war contest that began as Europe vis China, but when it was obvious that Europe was vastly outnumbered some Chinese came to our assistance, including this granny. There were jokes about Taiwan.

There was another more formal style of performance by Gao Shu Yi by the water's edge and this was followed by the burning of the papers we signed at the start, along with one or two things other things added to the fire, I remember a woolen hat ablaze.

There is some video of the tour along with some of the other Last Minute Live Art events from 2018 in this short round up. This Spontaneous Combustion Tour was a good start at making open-ended artist tour. It was very quickly put together and it strikes me that in order to make spontaneous combustion happen more effectively it can help to prepare the situation more in its favor. There will be more of these events in 2019 so lets see how far it can go in the direction of spontaneous participatory street performance!