Looking again at the performance and reworking a few details here and there I now start to question what was it about in the first place? Unlike producing an artefact that (usually) remains a fixed entity, a performance is slippery and I bring to it different ideas each time I revisit it and have the flexibility to change it a little or even a greal deal. I want to avoid treating the performance as a free for all into which I will play with whatever ideas I currently have about China and so I should be careful to retain some connection with the works impulse and realisation.
I don’t eat meat and have not for over 20 years. It was at first a principled decision, I believe, but now it is more or less a lifestyle and something I don’t particularly question. With the performance there is, to a lesser degree, something of this automatism too. I take it on trust that my impulses back then when making the work were principled and worth upholding and I pay attention more to the form. As such, I concern myself mostly with making changes that I feel are worthwhile and refining things that were previously ambiguous rather than attempting to recapture the original form of the work.
Because this work plays a lot with the mix of insight and incomprehension that being in China for a long period of time brought me, it is very delicately balanced between the two. Since I will be returning in less than three weeks for a longer stay in Beijing, the place in which I situate myself will probably change somewhat. I think I would be wise to make a follow up performance, The Customer Is Often Wrong?
Finally, I’ve been having some fun with making a playlist of music suitable for a Chinese New Year show. I had a curious dilemma. The performance has a lot of kitschy Spring Festival pop and yet I don’t want to portrat China a place of bad taste only. After the ‘premiere’ of The Customer Is Always Wrong we went out and finished up in a club that was full of break dancers and Chinese Hip Hop MCs. While that is not precisely my thing either, I thought it might be nice to add some of that too so that the incidental music is a bit more varied.
A hip-hop take on the year of the horse
