Braiding Water
Jan 17th & 18
JACK
The Exponential Festival 2025
Braiding Water is a tender dialogue with grief, an imagined mourning ritual that has been lost or forcibly erased for losses that could not be named.
Drawing loosely on historical tragedies in China from the 1950s to the present, I trace the experiences of loss and silence across four generations in my family through this solo performance. Honoring the family tradition – Traditional Chinese Massage therapy practices, I delve into the somatic relics of grief, seeking to understand the rituals and physical actions that accompany emotional processing.
Braiding Water examines the unreliability of memory and the interplay between individual and historical narratives, all while attempting to digitize the otherworldly presence of those we’ve lost.
This project for me is a perpetual practice that connects me to my family – as a daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter. History and trauma may have stripped away many storytelling forms and traditions through which we could remember, but we always have our bodies to return to. The pain and tension that grow beneath our skin might be an invitation for us to look inward to connect with our lineage.
Credits:
Created and Performed by Xiaoyue Zhang
Performance Collaborators: Hua Huang, Shaofen Shi
Co-directed by Brittney Brady, Xiaoyue Zhang
Dramaturg by Brittney Brady
Lighting Design & Creative Technical Collaboration by Kelley Shih
Sound Design by Haruhi Kobayashi
Scenic Consultation by QingAn Zhang
Sound Consultation by Lai-Luen Liang
Produced by Xiaoyue Zhang
Photos by Kelley Shih
Braiding Water developmental phase supported by Theater Mitu Hybrid Arts Lab 2023
Braiding Water is a tender conversation with grief, and an imagination for a mourning ritual that has been lost, or forced to be kept absent.
Tracing the experiences of loss and being silenced among 4 generations in my family, this project reflects on the parallel between silencing the living voice and forbidding a memorial for the dead, and how the growing mass surveillance interests with this parallel.
Tapping into the playfulness of technology, Braiding Water plays with the unreliability of memories, individual and historical narratives, and attempts to digitize the otherworldly presence.
Research & Development Phase:
April - May 2021
Supported by Los Angeles Performance Practice
R+D Residency
READ MORE
How do we articulate a traumatic experience when it’s inexpressible? How can we find new vocabularies for healing when language is still in crisis and complicates our experience?
Family M(e)assage (Working title) is an experiment that explores the legacy of national trauma within a family, especially how it passes down among generations through bodies and other non-verbal means. This project traces somatic connections among three generations of women in a family – my grandmother, my mother, and myself – to access the muted family history around and beyond the experience of the Land Reformation and the Cultural Revolution in China between the 1950s – 1970s.
This project takes studies on transgenerational trauma and Chinese Medicine Psychology - a study on the interrelationship between body and mind rooted in ancient Chinese medicine philosophy - as theoretical supports and inspirations.
Photos by: Yue Wang
Design support: Yue Wang, Xiyu Lin
assage%20-%20credit%20Yue%20Wang.jpg)
.jpg)
