[ENG] Transcript - Full Interview with Justyne Li

Photo Credit: Tony Chan

Date: 11 July 2016

TB: Tom Brown @dance journal

CL: Cathy Lau @dance journal

JL: Justyne Li @Neo Dance HK

TB Tell me a bit about the mandala, and how you came about doing it.

JL First of all, the concept is to start from the center and decide how many partitions you want to make within the circle. For example, I chose to make five with this one (pointing to one of her drawings). So I start from the center and divide the whole circle with five parts and then just add on any elements, one element at a time. So for example, I make a cross, and then I make the same cross in other parts so with each element I add, I try to make the whole picture balanced and even with each partition. So the whole idea is to generate something from the center and make the whole picture balanced and adding on little bit by little bit going out. For example, (showing us on the drawing) a cross and the next the thing I wanted to make was this little circle, so (again pointing out places on the drawing) little circle, little circle. And the other important thing for me is not to plan the whole structure beforehand. So it’s just like playing a game or playing with a toy it’s a way to pass time in an enjoyable way. And let things just flow out. Let the information from the subconscious or from the universe just flow into the mind and come out through the pencil. Without any planning, the picture will plan little, by little, and it will be a nice surprise in the end.

TB The process that you describe, allowing it to come out almost on its own – from the subconscious or from some kind of ether – there was a trend in early 20th century art, Dadaism it’s called, that had something called automatic writing. And people would – it’s completely different but – one person would write something and then fold the paper over and the next person would write something, and fold it over until they had a whole phrase or a story sometimes. And one of the ideas behind that, and behind Dadaism was to allow things to come out from the subconscious, not from habit or from taste, or anything like that, but just from itself. It’s also the whole thing behind Cunningham’s work and the idea of chance. He would roll the dice, toss the dice and decide which one of the body parts would move, which direction it would move in, whether it would be partnered, which part of the stage it would happen in. He wanted to remove his own choices, he wanted to let the movement speak for itself. It’s like color field, in a way it’s a very modern idea, contemporary idea.

JL That’s interesting. That’s why with this mandala, when I just let things come in and without my own style, I found that everyone can be very different. I haven’t practiced for a long time – I haven’t practiced so much yet, so I don’t really have a fixed style for each one. It’s really nice that everyone is different. That is the reason I really want to make one. Particularly for this dance work, because I want to know how the energy from the whole process, and how the energy from the dance work or from my dancers, transfer to a drawing.

CL You mentioned one way of drawing this is making it balanced and equivalent. Is it the rule for drawing this, or is your own idea.

JL (Answer in Cantonese) This is not truth. As far as I know, the concept of drawing a mandala is “whatever happened inside a circle”. There will be two ways of drawing it – one is start from the center, then each part will be balanced and equal; another way is to fill up the space after framing a circle.

JL This one actually is the first one I drew without absolutely even partitions.

CL (Summarizing JL’s Cantonese response) Justyne mentioned there are two ways of drawing. The first way is what she is using, adapting – it starts from the center. The other way is frame a circle first and fill up the information of the inside.

JL Actually when I started this one, (pointing to one drawing) I started this one as well (pointing to another drawing), because I didn’t know whether to make it four or five for this.

CL Including herself is five; excluding herself is four. So why did you make it four instead of five?

JL (Answer in Cantonese) One day when I arrived the theater in early morning, and I drew this when I was at the restaurant unconsciously.

CL (Summarizing JL’s Cantonese response) She made it when she was in the theatre for rehearsal, and she had some free time when (Lam) Po was doing his tech rehearsal. And she started in the Café, and she made a start for no reason.

CL So was it that anything touched you, maybe you saw the dancers playing in the theater?

JL One of the reasons that made me divide it in four, is one image I use in my piece – (she shows us a photo of an image) – because I always use some image to explain to my dancers what is what - I have a little group on Facebook with my dancers. (Showing us a copy of M.C. Escher’s lithograph, Ascending and Descending) This is one of the pictures (shared with her dancers). One of the elements I use in my piece (is) that sometimes when they walk, their route (is) in a square. (Pointing to the Escher) And this is like a maze or like an illusion of a person having great difficulties trying to get out of one situation. It’s like the stairs are forever going up or forever going down and however you walk, you keep repeating the same difficult situation. So this is one element that flashed through my mind when I was drawing this and I thought, oh maybe I want to include this as well in the drawing, but in the end I didn’t. So I divided it into four, this is one of the reasons.

CL When did you start the center? You said you started the center and then you continued with other elements and you put other elements in during the rehearsal. How about the center, was it at the same time, in the café? You started the center and then planned it for a while and then came back?

JL This center was started even earlier, like two weeks before the show.

CL (Summarizing JL’s Cantonese response) It was two weeks before the show, she started the center and then you put it away.

JL Yes and did other things.

TB I heard you mention you had a little Facebook group with your dancers. Talk a little bit more about that. What did you include in that Facebook page?

JL Mainly, I uploaded the rehearsal videos on the Facebook group because I know my choreography tends to have a lot of details, and I had a feeling that, and some of the dancers had the feeling that they needed more time to study on their own or we (would) need more time in the rehearsal to get all the details. And I always use video to capture some useful things or to replay and explain what they did nice or not so nice. And for myself, when I work as a dancer, I also use the video to teach myself what to do. So I think, as a dancer to watch in the video what one was doing in the rehearsal is more useful than if I tell them what they should do. For example, Rex (Rex Cheng, one of the dancers in Li’s Human Internship for which the mandala was made), used a lot of time to study at home. He always watched the video to see what he could do better. It is like he discovered for himself what he could improve. I think this way is more efficient than me telling them all the time what ‘you’ should do here, here, here, here.

TB So you uploaded the video, did you also say anything about the video, was there a voiceover about what you were seeing, or just the video itself?

JL Just the video, mostly.

TB What else did you post on the Facebook page? You showed us the Escher drawing, aside from that what other things did the Facebook page include.

JL Well, mostly the videos, because I uploaded every time – after every rehearsal. And this stair and armour from Prague (showing another picture of armour) are some images or elements I put (on Facebook) to help them to understand the reason behind a certain part. So these two pictures are particularly for Yip’s (Chan Wing-yip, a dancer in Human Internship) part. This staircase is for his understanding of the blindness part, when Fang (Wu Cheng-fang, a dancer in Human Internship) was behind him and covering his eyes.

So that besides doing the movement and executing the idea, right here (pointing to the Escher lithograph) he has an actual understanding of why he is doing certain things and why this idea is put upon him. And this armour is also for his part. After his solo, there is one part when he (continuously) falls onto the floor. So this armour is the weight or the heaviness of the physical body, from maybe his past, maybe the emotion that like poison seeped into his body and his blood.

And this, the shadow (showing us Ron Pyatt’s drawing showing a dark monster-like figure approaching a man basking in the sun from behind used to illustrate Carl Gustav Jung’s pronouncement, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious”) is to explain the relationship between Rex and Alice (Alice Ma the fourth dancer in Human Internship).

I put this in the Facebook group, and they could spend time to check for themselves and understand more about everything.

TB Who drew these?

JL I don’t know. I Googled ‘Jung’ and ‘Shadow’ and a lot of pictures popped up.

TB And the Jung quote – (referring to another drawing Li has scrolled on her phone showing a tree with long roots and a snake coiled around it - a representation of the Kabbala Tree of Life?) illustrating another saying of Jung’s, “No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven. . .”)

JL This part was for Rex and Alice (the Pyatt drawing) and this part with Eve and the serpent (showing a drawing of the biblical Eve?) is for Fang. This twisted image (the tree with a snake coiled around it?) is for Fang and Yip - the mirror part. Just something to help them to get into the meaning behind.

Images provided by Justyne Li

TB I think it is very interesting that you used these diverse references to help your dancers. It’s something that Martha Graham often did and Doris Humphrey as well. Not just, say here’s a movement - do it, but bring things in to help them get at the movement. And not just pictures, but things like Jung. Graham of course used Freud a lot – her father was a psychiatrist. Humphrey had her dancers read Nietzsche to get at some of her ideas as well.

I’ve mentioned Graham and Humphrey, two women choreographers and in early modern dance there were actually more women choreographers than men.

JL Really!

TB Oh sure. Humphrey, Graham in the United States, Hanya Holm as well, Anna Sokolow, Pearl Lang. In Europe you had Mary Wigman and Marie Rambert. Nowadays it seems like there are more men choreographers – or it’s the men who are getting the attention a lot. There was Pina Bausch is of course. How is it to be a woman and a choreographer and especially because you’ve done it for some time now? When did you first start making dances, in University, right?

JL That’s interesting because about 15 years ago, I never wanted or never dreamed to be a choreographer.

TB Where were you 15 years ago?

JL In the Hong Kong Ballet.

TB And that was the first gig in Hong Kong Ballet or second gig? You first got hired by Hong Kong Ballet, or in Europe first?

JL Hong Kong Ballet.

TB So, soon after you graduated.

JL Yes. I never had a wish that I would be a choreographer some day when I was at the APA. I just wanted to dance. And I just wanted to be a good dancer and enjoy what I was doing as a dancer. And it was actually an accident that I started choreography because I failed to join any company in Europe and came back to Hong Kong and had an extra year of study at the APA in modern dance stream and after that I still wanted to be in a company. I tried to audition for CCDC, but still failed. So, I just needed to continue as a freelance dance artist. And not so many people invited me to dance in their pieces, so if I didn’t make my own choreography, I wouldn’t have anything to dance.

TB You graduated from the Ballet stream, you went to the Hong Kong Ballet, you worked there for three years. Then you decided to go to Europe and get a job there. You didn’t get a job. . .

JL Well I got a job one time and stayed there for one year. But I didn’t want to stay there and turned down the contract extension. And I tried to find another job and couldn’t find any.

TB And so you took that opportunity and came back to the Academy and did a Professional Diploma in modern dance – and that was when I taught you. You took the choreographic project class. But even then you weren’t interested in becoming a choreographer, you were just exploring it. And after that you went and auditioned again at various places in Hong Kong and abroad. And ultimately you did get a couple jobs in Europe. . .

JL Well, that was many years after becoming a freelance choreographer. I was 29 when I went to Germany again. So, I was 25 when I graduated from the Professional Diploma. So four years.

TB So you kicked around in Hong Kong for four years doing stuff, making your own work. But you continued doing it. You said, you first got into it by accident and choreographed because you wanted to have something to dance but you continued. . .

JL Yes, maybe one reason was that I met my husband (Wong Tan-ki) at that time and he was in the same situation as me. So, we just talked and said, maybe we can do something together. And in the end it turned out that both of us were quite creative. And we found out that it was just our natures to create something. This accident of losing jobs from companies and meeting him also gave me signs about what I really am. I think it helped me to develop in a way that it is impossible to do in a company.

TB Why?

JL Actually, I also see this in my dancers. That there is an important difference between those who tried to make a piece and those who never made a piece in the way they dance.

(Continues in Cantonese) I can see an obvious and fatal variance in the attitude between those who never choreograph and those who did, which make a difference in how they dance.

CL (Summarizing JL’s Cantonese response) She can see the purpose (of their movement) from those who have choreographic experience – the gesture, the position. But for those who don’t have any (choreographic) experience, she doesn’t see their purpose.

JL Instinctually, they make whatever they dance believable, and I had this feeling when I went back to Germany and was a company dancer again after so many years of freelancing choreography. I feel that when I dance, I carry an energy that was different than before when I was in the Hong Kong Ballet. This energy, I also see from company dancers that sometimes I feel that they just execute, but something important is missing. Something important is missing behind the nice body and the long legs, and maybe perfect technique. I felt quite lucky when I was in Germany. If I didn’t have those four lost years, then maybe I wouldn’t even have gotten the job in Germany and wouldn’t have enjoyed dancing so much. One thing was that when I was dancing for another person’s piece I had the mentality to understand the choreography in his position. This is an even more direct communication, this understanding, than any coaching. When I knew what it is like to make a choreography, and I danced it as if I choreographed it, then the dancing becomes much more believable, and easier for me to be able to do it.

CL Is it only Rex and Alice who have experience in choreography?

JL (Answer in Cantonese) Yes, Yip also did. Yet his experience is different since he possesses another dance background.

CL (Summarizing JL’s Cantonese response) She mentions that Rex and Alice have experience of choreography. Also Yip, but Yip comes from a totally different background.

TB Yes, Yip makes up steps. And Fang should have some choreographic background in terms of her education which is similar to yours. She did her undergraduate at (State University of New York at) Purchase.

JL Yes. We also talked about it. She said she tried it, but she didn’t really enjoy the stress of being a choreographer.

TB Whatever you did, I must say it’s the best I’ve ever seen her dance, in your piece.

JL Yes, she really e