I’ve had a fun day in the name of artistic research! I’ve been to Zhabei park (as tipped off by the work of Francois Chastanet). Oh, my, goodness! What a park – it really is a local park for the community. The activities that we in the UK would normally do in an arts, sports or community centre all take place here. I’ve seen:
tai chi,
fishing,
instrument practicing (euphonium, clarinet, trumpet to name a few),
singing,
walking,
stretching,
calligraphy practice,
mass line dancing,
badminton
knitting
and ballroom dancing.
Now, my interest in movement in my work started at university, when I practiced ballroom dancing as a pastime (I’m reasonably skilled at it), so I was watching all of this going on, and, my, what a cacophony of sound it was, and one of the dancers came and asked if I’d like to dance. I was made up, I was itching to get up there, I’ve not ballroom danced in ages, but it’s something I love to do. It was a bit tricky at first, working out what steps he was trying to get me to do, but in the end we ended up with somethings that looked a little bit like a tango, and quite a lot like a salsa. Our cha-cha’s never quite cha’d in the same place though. I danced for nearly an hour and had great fun, and it was great to be in the middle of this mass of people all exercising, socialising and enjoying themselves.
It was also a great opportunity to observe how the plaza functioned too. From the buzz I encountered at 10am, it became much quieter as people dispersed for their lunch – physically and well as audibly (there’s a decibel-ometer that read 70db at it’s peak, and lowered to 49db by lunch). I think it might be somewhere that I could make a piece of work – it won’t be watermark, but there’s something about the space that I think will draw me back, although that might just be a desire to dance.
