Beijing Bucket Blues: ArtsCross/Danscross

I had never visited Beijing or China before. This writing is an attempt to convey my experience of the creation of a new work with dancers from the Beijing Dance Academy and Taipei National University of the Arts, attendant translators and my partner and assistant Ben Ash, and takes in both the circumstances of the creation process per say within the context of the wider impact of the cultural shift. The view of China that I had as a performance maker prior to the journey, coupled with the transformation of this view by the given circumstances which in some ways were extreme in cultural difference, created a particular field of practice that impacted on the development of the work. An ability to facilitate nuanced conversation with performers is something I had taken for granted in my creative practice, and so with this sense of isolation and desire for connection I found myself assimilating these feelings and frustrations as well as the excitement I had in relation to my new circumstances into the resultant work performed.