Future Host: A Speech Opera
Future Host [未来主人] (Noun.) is an epithet commonly bestowed to children in officially socialist states, which posit their youngsters as the agent, product, and site of a speculative reality, for which they must always already be ready—a command of absolute urgency and ecstatic optimism.
Invoking the ancient, pliable form of chorus, Future Host: A Speech Opera channels historical methods and patterns of speaking and speech-making via an original text, written and performed in Chinese. Fragmented words and unorthodox verbal expressions are composed into a polyphonic soundscape beyond the limits of comprehensibility, where the audience move freely in space. Together with performance of improvisational music by a children's string quartet, they form an aleatory, fully sensorial experience centered on a void.
PREMIERE
Playwright/Director: Tingying Ma
Dramaturg/Producer: Kang Kang
Co-Producer: Maya Yu Zhang
Spatial Sound Production: Kamron Saniee
Live Musical Composition: C. Spencer Yeh
Graphic Design: Pianpian He
September 28, 2016
Panoply Performance Laboratory, Brooklyn, NY
January 20-22, 2017
Premiere at Knockdown Center, Queens, NY
February 13-14, 2017
TPAM Performing Arts Meeting, BankART Studio, Yokohama
CHINA TOUR
Playwright/Director: Tingying Ma
Dramaturg/Producer: Kang Kang
Composition: C. Spencer Yeh
Live Music Director: Chatori Shimizu
Technical Sound Director: Gus Callahan
Photography: Ke Peng, Qinrui Hua
Visuals: Qingshan Wang
Graphic Design: Pianpian He
Costume Design: Meixusan
September 8-9, 2018
Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), Beijing, China
September 15-16, 2018
Ming Contemporary Art Museum (MCAM), Shanghai, China
EXHIBITIONS
One (Illegitimate) Child. Curated by Wu Jianru. March 17 – October 9, 2020, International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York.
WRITINGS
“Future Host: A Speech Opera,” Emergency Index Vol. 7, Brooklyn: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2017.