The promised land puppetry used the revolutionary play Mystery Bouffe by Vladimir Mayakovsky, 1921 as a script source to reimagine, re-design and re-perform, which response to inequity and precarity in the contemporary society in the 21st century. As this intention, the individual part focused on the issue that is the manipulation of the fast fashion strategies for consumers and its negative influences on the environment. These produced two characters, a fast fashion queen and a consumer, J, with the new controlling power relationship compared with the original two: the clean as the power and the unclean as the labourer. In this case, according to the marketing strategies: promotions, rapid replacement of new styles, soft advertising, donation program, the queen, as a symbol of fast fashion, features the big sale necklace and a movable mouth with a robotic sort of sound. With J, it developed to a kind of surreal image in the teamwork performance, whilst using echo effect to show the overlapping sound of J and the queen and embody the manipulating relationship between them.
Through reimagining act six of the original script, referenced from Alice’s Adventures in wonderland, the group performance was considered a dream. The dream responds to five topics in today's life, control and manipulation, human and nature, the unfair reality of the working conditions, laws and knowledge, and unconditional love. A little girl, Annabelle, as the dreamer grows and changes through visiting and communicating with characters in the different and opposing worlds (utopic and dystopic), which re-composes a promised land, a key element in act six.
This performance intends to allow the audience to recognize and re-considering the existing issues surrounding them. This ambition can be seen again in the ending song by singing keywords of each world and some questions.
Teamwork : Jing Wen, Tian Qian, Tina Chin, Xinyue Liang,
Yu Zhou
My job: participation | production of ending song,
beginning production
Indivisual part | first promised land design, script
writing, two shadow scenes
Material: fabric, A4 paper, wool thread, mirror,
metal wire, tinfoil
Software: madmapper, projector, PS, AI, PR,
AU, garageband
Location: London, United Kindom
J, Anna︎︎︎
The ending song
promi
promise land
fashion
changing
excited
manipulation
damage planet
endangered species
burning fuel
dying planet
obey (promi promi)
system (promi promi)
puppets (promi promi)
oppression (promi promi)
sharing wisdom
sharing property
sparking spaking
(promi promi promi promi)
freedom (promi promi)
colourful (promi promi)
rainbow (promi promi)
Love (promi promi)
Promise land (promi promi)
Promise land (promi promi)
Promise land (promi promi)
Promise land (promi promi)
Do you like your dream ？
Do you like your real life?
Can you imagine? the promise land you’ll live in ？
promi promise promiseland ！
promi promise promiseland ！
promi promise promiseland ！
promi promise promiseland ！
promise land
fashion
changing
excited
manipulation
damage planet
endangered species
burning fuel
dying planet
obey (promi promi)
system (promi promi)
puppets (promi promi)
oppression (promi promi)
sharing wisdom
sharing property
sparking spaking
(promi promi promi promi)
freedom (promi promi)
colourful (promi promi)
rainbow (promi promi)
Love (promi promi)
Promise land (promi promi)
Promise land (promi promi)
Promise land (promi promi)
Promise land (promi promi)
Do you like your dream ？
Do you like your real life?
Can you imagine? the promise land you’ll live in ？
promi promise promiseland ！
promi promise promiseland ！
promi promise promiseland ！
promi promise promiseland ！
