BEIJING...

A Phoenix carved into a stone in the 'Forbidden City', which is a fascinating complex of passage ways, offices and residences built in the early fifteenth century. Protected by three walls it was created during the rule of the 'Ming' dynasty to house the Emperor, his wife, concubines and entourage. The central area consists of a series of enormous open squares, overlooked by the Emperors office and military buildings. Around the edges are a maze of passageways in which people lived and worked (we got lost exploring just a small section). It was conquered by the 'Qing' Emperor in 1644. In a state of near bankrupcy the Ming family were unable to resist the Qing army. As the armies approached, the last Ming Emperor murderred both his wife and Son and hung himself on the hill that overlooks the forbidden city...

The Phoenix symbolised the Empress, while images of Dragons symbolised the Emperors Power. These creatures can be seen all over the architecture, particularly on the roofs. The number of animals (from 3-11) perched on the roof of a building indicated its importance.

Pushing, shoving, shouting, whistling, megaphones declare 'one minute here, take your photos and come back'...the sounds of Chinese tourist groups.

The marriage bed in the 'Palace of Earthly Tranquility'. Tourists cannot enter any of the buildings and you find yourself continually peeping into rooms containing ornate and tantalising scenes, at once aware of your own image being reflected back at you.

I liked the names of the buildings; the wedding room in the forbidden city was called 'The Hall of Earthly Tranquility', which was next to the 'Palace of Peace and Tranquility', where the Emperor and Empress would spend three days after their marriage. In reality these palaces may have been far from tranquil; the marriages were arranged and our guide told us that one of the Empresses hung herself in this complex. After his marriage, the Emperor would later have taken concubines, who lived competing for his attention in a section of the city. The life of a concubine who had fallen out of favour would have been bleak- they were fed just enough to survive and had no proffession or purpose other than to please the Emperor.

Words, sounds, movements that are not based on realism. Monkey gods talk, dance and wreak havoc across the Heavens. Men dress as women and slide their vocals across painful heights. In the Chinese Revolution, the opera was banned. For Revolutions are times of certainty, there is no more room for shadows and dreams. "Orwell perceived clearly that in a totalitarian state dreaming is a crime. Instead of dreams, realism. Total visibility. The contours must be clearly drawn lest one be seduced to allow heretical thoughts to come in. ...Because dreams are testimonies that the soul has not become an encaged bird" (Rubem Alves, The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet; 31).
The opera lives on, but the land of mist, shadows and dreams, the land of equisite culture that once was China, is yet to return.




" Many soldiers refer to the wearing of uniforms on the first day of reserve duty as the donning of disguises, as the bearing of masks" (Ben Ari, Israeli Anthropologist)

The mask, painting the face, the costume, creates a space where you are no longer yourself. Social norms and rules of behaviour can be broken..The family man becomes the soldier in the simple act of donning a uniform. The actor paints his face and is transformed into a fantasy being. Theatre is the powerful space of politics where fantasy and dreams can change reality.

Amy wrote:

I've been thinking about dreaming being a crime and a lifeline... Azar Nafisi captures this in her book, Reading Lolita in Tehran. She evokes the haze that people are left with when imagination is criminalised. She quotes... someone (I can't remember and don't have my copy of the book to hand to check sorry!) who talks about 'the land of the imagination', and it being a place where people can choose to reside, as a form of protest against a totalitarian regime.