Truc Truong, the love ethic, performance collaboration (developed with Trung Han Qun Lion Dance and Martial Arts group), 2021 iteration forthcoming, bleached clothing on cotton drill; 2021 iteration documented and edited by David Ma, commissioned by 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art; courtesy the artist.
For more information, please visit 4A website.
As a part of my curatorial practice, I curated the exhibition hai con lân việt kiều at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. hai con lân việt kiều (Two overseas Vietnamese unicorns), was the first solo exhibition of emerging Vietnamese-Australian artist Truc Truong. The exhibition showcased bespoke refashioning of traditional lion dance ensembles. By reinventing the costume, Truong delved into the tradition of lion dancing and how the cultural ritual has come to reflect the diasporic nature of multicultural Australian identities.
The costumes used panels of Truong’s own clothing, draping out from beneath traditional Vietnamese lion heads. By utilising material assemblage and fabric bleaching to alter the lion dance costume, Truong’s work articulates the nuances and challenges of assimilation, its impacts on her own familial history and the ‘alterations’ faced by Asian-Australian migrants in an era post-colonisation. Typically, lion dancing symbolises the removal of unwanted spirits. Here, Truong depicted how the fighting lions can transform and become microcosms of Asian-Australian generational wisdom.
For many, hai con lân việt kiều enacted an unexpected encounter, helping to reignite the Sydney CBD’s vibrancy over the summer festival period. In the past, traditional lion dances have been a common occurrence during Lunar New Year throughout Haymarket. hai con lân việt kiều represented an artistic response to the Lunar New Year tradition and the unprecedented changes that occurred post-2020 pandemic that impacted this annual ritual. The project ensured contemporary performance art reached new audiences in an accessible and captivating way, heralding a new year and celebrating the dynamism of the local, vibrant Haymarket community.
Performance work - the love ethic
I had opportunity to curate, produce and collaboratively choreograph the bespoke performance with Trung Han Qun Martial Arts and Lion Dancing Academy that took place in the Chinese Garden of Friendship. Accompanying the exhibition was a documentation video of the newly-commissioned contemporary lion dance performance, the love ethic. The performance was held at Haymarket’s Chinese Garden of Friendship to herald the 2021 Lunar New Year. Breaking with tradition, this performance featured a bespoke refashioning of the traditional lion dance costumes hand-made by Truong, which were embodied and activated by the THQ troupe from Cabramatta. The performance, which featured the lions awakening, dancing and revealing themselves as they flitted between the Garden’s unique architecture, was intended as a celebratory act to rid the world of the misfortune of 2020 and welcome a year of prosperity and happiness. the love ethic marks the first iteration of hai con lân việt kiều in Sydney.
Things that I learned and questioned in the process —
how does the performative aspect to this work enliven the process?
what is vital about having the performance take place?
what does the performance speak to?
I personally felt the work would not have been the same without the performance and the performance documentation, as the performance specifically speaks to how the costumes are used, what the costumes’ function is, what the costumes mean now…
Initial performance description —
1. A traditional lion will come out and complete a usual routine
2. It will drink bleach bottles left on the floor and do a sleepy/drunk routine
3. It will hide and then another white lion wearing my costume will appear (representing change)
4. It will do a sleepy/wakeup routine
5. Both lions will appear to do a traditional routine to end the show
The bleach aspect to the performance was really vital to the choreographic process. Drinking the bleach, in the performance, was quite whimsical and silly as the lion got drunk but, in actuality, it was quite a dark aspect to content behind the work. It speaks to cultural ‘bleaching’ out and the amendments one makes to one’s identity as an aftereffect of generational trauma. Truong’s work is comedically dark and I found working with her a fruitful beginning to uncovering these aspects of curating performance that speaks to the nature of diasporic Asian-Australian identities.