衛武營國家藝術文化中心 National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying)

by LIU Yi-zih

I started making a habit of going to see theater performances in university. My professor for modern theater, a required class in the literature department, had us write ten reports on plays per semester, which meant I had to see about two a month. After a year, I was not only doing it as an assignment; I had become obsessed with theater. The design of the stage, sound, imagery, lighting, etc., creates a unique world in which the audience can directly experience the emotions and physical movements of the characters. Everything has a sense of novelty and yet the feeling of having been experienced before. As you project yourself onto the characters on stage, it seems you to become reacquainted with yourself and come to understand the meaning of life and the realm of emotion.

Once I had my first child, it seemed I would have to give up my theater habit. This prompted me to start looking for performances directed at children and families, something new to me. As my eldest was about to turn one, I brought the whole family to the culture center for a concert specially arranged for children under four. The seating was full of the sounds of crying, laughing, and talking of adults and children alike. It was completely different from my previous concert experiences and is a memory I will not soon forget. I had never imagined that people at a performance could break all the "rules," so I began to enjoy taking my child out to all kinds of theater shows for families. 

When my eldest was two, I got pregnant again. During my month-long postpartum confinement, my husband brought me a copy of the recently published Giving Birth to a Child: The Magical Cure for My Over-sentimental Personality, by Su Mei. Though it was just meant to give me something to do, it became a source of comfort that showed me I needed to get a clear understanding of reality: My time of "reckless short essays" had clearly passed, and starting to care for children meant I had embarked on a new era of a "lengthy, tough epic." I had not one, but two, kids! How could I possibly think of myself anymore? But don't underestimate the hipster: Becoming a mother makes one stronger, and that is not just some cliché. When it was one on one, I could hold my own, so one on two would be nothing to worry about either. 

"You'll straighten out all the chaos in life because you’ll gradually toughen up."

A month before my second child was to turn one, I got the itch to see a show. At the time, Flying Group Theatre was doing La Naissance (a puppet theater show), so I brought my kids. It is about a young girl's dream, a journey of birth that begins with a whale and an egg. The girl sees the birth, aging, sickness, and death of numerous individuals. The puppetry, live incidental music, and play of light and shadow open up a world of imagination for the viewer.

On the way home, my daughter kept asking me where the egg was from and who its mother was. She talked about how a seagull produces seven eggs at once, clownfish like to play hide-and-seek, male seahorses are the ones who carry and give birth to the babies, and more. These curiosities and surprises about life are the charm of theater.

"A child's world is full of 'unbelievable' things. All day they ask 'Why this?' and 'Why that?" to the point that adults yell at them to be quiet. But these things that adults view as common knowledge are actually complex and confusing to kids."

It makes me think of how the Japanese psychologist Hayao Kawai said that adults live in a world where everything is viewed as naturally so and making perfect sense; they have gradually lost the capacity to feel that something is "unbelievable." Bringing my kids to the theater to open up their senses to all kinds of experiences and the imagination might be viewed as a method of educating my kids. But even more so, it is how I have re-entered childhood and am re-growing with my children since becoming a mother. By understanding my kids, I am learning how to be a mom and re-learning those skills I forgot long ago.

Learning how to share and love.

In Huang Yi Studio +'s Little Ant and Robot: A Nomad Café, a human and a robot become good friends, work together, and dance together. This fantasy world is full of so many unbelievable things. Can this kind of dancing really be called dancing? Can people really be friends with robots? Can people make ice cream and prepare meals with robots? On stage, these things that commonly happen in real life take on a sense of fantasy and seem unbelievable. 

Huang Yi and Kuka is Huang Yi Studio +'s most reputed work. In 2012, HUANG Yi started to bring his creations on a world tour, all the while trying out new ways to incorporate Kuka the robot into the show. Little Ant and Robot: A Nomad Café is HUANG's first performance made for families.

HUANG believes that children and their inborn imaginations can generate so many ideas and feelings outside the medium of speech. All he brings to the equation are questions and links to create relationships and allow kids to see the interaction between humans and robots and between technology and art. If we adults can, like our children, open up our hearts to experience "the unbelievable," our time at the show will not just be a way to connect with our kids but to rediscover our childlike innocence and receive an almost magical form of therapy.

Learn More:

HUANG YI STUDIO + Little Ant & Robot: A Nomad Café