Stories from the Body #1 - performance, participatory

part of the opening and (Atelier’s) closing programme for Louise Bourgeois’ Has the Day Invaded the Night or Has the Night Invaded the Day?

Art Gallery NSW

25 and 26 November 2023, 24 April 2024

Above image taken by Paul Schacher.

Stories from the Body (SFTB) is a performance series and vehicle for re-tracing WeiZen’s personal ancestral lineages, disrupted over the past century as her forebears journeyed from Southern Fujian in China to Java, Singapore and Malaysia.

The entity in Stories from the Body (SFTB) #1 is a re-imagined hybrid of the mysterious puyong and pontianak entities from Malaysian folk-lore.

First performed in Indonesia (2014), then at Woodford Academy (the Blue Mountain's oldest surviving building, in 2015), and on Ogijima Island, Japan, as part of Setouchi Triennale Art Festival (2016). In 2019, SFTB#1 was expanded to include a large mechanised sculptural robe suspended above the performer for the Blue Mountains City Gallery, Katoomba.

For the 25 and 26 November’s opening programme for Has the Day Invaded the Night or Has the Night Invaded the Day? exhibition

The late morning begins with poetry and storytelling with Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor. During the 5-min call for silence by Aunty Rhonda, SFTB#1 begins, journeying from the park, public footpath and pools, relating to Bourgeois’ 'Maman' sculpture in front of the South Wing on Gallery Road. Passersby and the audience are then led to the North Wing’s forecourt, down the circular stairs to the lower level. The work refined the choreographic system for incorporating objects for audience members to activate the pipes through inhalations and exhalations. A dissonant choir of sounds resonated within the North Wing’s interior, which pushed the performance to a different height.