Be the first to read an extract from Bound Feet Blues, the book

Writer/ Performer Yang-May Ooi shares an extract from her new book, Bound Feet Blues – A Life Told in Shoes. The manuscript has just been submitted to publisher Urbane Publications and will be available in bookshops and online in early November. 

I was very pleased at the weekend to be able to put the finishing touches to the manuscript of Bound Feet Blues, the book and to dispatch it to Matthew Smith, my publisher at Urbane Publications.

As I celebrated with some bubbly with my partner, I reflected on how taking of my shoes and going barefoot transformed the stage version of Bound Feet Blues from a long form style of storytelling into a dramatic performance.

 

I write about that moment in the book so what better way to share my reflections here than with an extract…

I began to go through the scenes of Bound Feet Blues. The sexy walking in the opening moments became sexier. In the scene when I am eight, I suddenly took off half running, half skipping round the dining room – my whole body expressed the gangly movements of a little girl. As the bound foot mother, I stood with Continue reading

Learn How To Magnify Your Stage Presence to Supercharge Your Public Speaking

Are your nerves letting you down when you have to give a presentation? Is your delivery getting in the way of the othewise powerful message you want to convey to your audience?

If you want to learn the secrets of commanding a full theatre – and have fun, too, along the way – come to the storytelling and perfomance masterclass Own Your Story, Own the Room on Sat 16 May 2015 in Central London.

I’ll be sharing what I learnt from performing my solo show Bound Feet Blues to a sold-out West End theatre so you can take home with you tools to:

# dominate any stage you may be invited to speak on

# welcome and accept the gaze of your audience

# connect warmly with your audience

In Bound Feet Blues, I stand alone on stage for one hour to deliver a dramatised story, playing all the different characters and taking the audience to settings from Oxford, to ancient China and Australia and Malaysia – all without any costumes, props, scenery/ backdrops or music and performed barefoot. The success of the piece depends entirely on me. I must command the stage and hold the attention of the audience for a full 60 minutes. The showcase performance in Oct last year received 4+ Star reviews and one reviewer said of the piece, “a deeply personal and heartfelt performance… I felt the eyes of the audience follow Ooi unblinkingly until the end.”

Do you want to know how you can command the stage like this, too? The masterclass on 16 May could be for you. It will include theatre games that I have devised that will give you experiential learning – one of the best ways to capture performance mastery to magnify your stage presence.

My colleague, Beverley Glick, an award-winning speaker and well-respected journalist, is co-facilitating the masterclass and we will also be guiding participants through how to find the inspiring personal stories in their lives. You will discover how to Continue reading

Bound Feet Blues, the book, to be published by a handsome man at Urbane Publications

In February, I signed with Urbane Publications to bring out the book of Bound Feet Blues: The Stories behind the Story. Here is the historic moment – I am with Matthew Smith of Urbane, signing the contract on the 5th floor balcony of the Royal Festival Hall.

 

One of my female friends asked me, “Who is that handsome man you are with?”

Hmm. Regular readers of this blog will know that I grapple with the issue of women being objectified for their beauty and in particular, in ancient China for their tiny bound feet. So as a feminist and a humanist, I am in a quandary. Does that comment objectify Matthew?

Another female friend commented on Facebook about me in this photo: “looking f***ing hot”. Was she objectifying me?

I would say that neither comment is an objectification. I am all for appreciating someone’s looks, whether they are male or female – so long as Continue reading

The longest journey begins with a single step

“The longest journey begins with a single step ” – that is the inspiring quote I am using as the opening epigraph for my book of Bound Feet Blues.


It is apt for the topic of bound feet and in particular the pain of walking in bound feet – but also encompasses any endeavour we may try.

Step by step.

That is what got Cheryl Strayed through her thousand mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, as portrayed in her book and the movie of the same name, Wild. That is how my great-grandmother escaped an unhappy marriage in China, on her bound feet, to make a new Continue reading

Bound Feet Blues – The Book!

I’ve made a start on the book version of Bound Feet Blues and I’m pleased to say I have the first 5,153 words.

The script of Bound Feet Blues is only 25 pages and runs to a one hour show. That meant that I had to edit down the stories and simplify it all in order to create a story that works as an oral story and a theatre piece. The book will tell “The Stories Behind The Story”, expanding on and deepening the stories that are in the show.

The book will be framed by the scratch night performance that I tried out at Conway Hall in March this year. This was my first attempt at presenting the piece to a live audience and was made up of 45 minutes of a rough draft of the incomplete material. The book will follow my journey as a writer and performer trying to develop the memoir that would eventually become Bound Feet Blues, the show, alongside the journey of the actual story within the show.

Why this structure?

Well, I tried for many years to write the stories of my family, my heritage and my own personal life as a conventional memoir and that did not work. Bound Feet Blues works because it is a live dramatised story performance. So I want to honour the oral storytelling out of which the show evolved by writing a book that is an UNconventional memoir and that has the feel of Continue reading

Bound Feet Blues Rehearsal Photos – with writer/ performer Yang-May Ooi and director Jessica Higgs

These photos were taken at a rehearsal the week before the Bound Feet Blues showcase performance. They show me in various scenes from the show, and discussing the script with director Jessica Higgs.

The photos were taken by the brilliant Claudia Rocha

The iconic pose showing my left hand as a bound foot “The Golden Lotus”

 

Discussing the script with director Jessica Higgs

Two more photos below –  Continue reading

Yang-May Ooi talking about thrillers and bound feet on Radio Verulam [audio]

Here is my interview on Radio Verulam – click on the link below and a player will open up:

https://app.box.com/s/0n1njetp0eut0bv29dxg

  Yang-May Ooi on Radio Verulam

 

 

It’s about 15 mins long. Enjoy!

 

Continue reading

First look at the new cover for Mindgame – my lesbian thriller set in Malaysia

I am very excited to share with you the new cover for Mindgame, my second novel and the first – and only – Malaysian lesbian thriller!

The cover is designed by Monsoon Books for the new ebook version that they will be bringing out shortly. It depicts the dark themes of the book quite well, I think:

# the mind manipulation is suggested by the dark swirling cloud to the young woman’s right

# the dream-like, hallucinations bubble up around her, partly light, partly dark

# behind all that, there is an ominous Continue reading

What do bound feet have in common with a lesbian thriller?

My solo show Bound Feet Blues asks the question: how do we as individuals, and as women, live authentic lives true to ourselves within a dominant culture that seeks to control our bodies and our spirit? Foot binding in ancient China broke a woman’s body physically – but also broke her spirit over the course of the many years it would take to create the perfect tiny foot. What dominant cultural traditions in our modern era play a similar controlling role in who and what we can be?

I’ve just received the proofs of the e-book of my second novel, Mindgame, the first and only lesbian Malaysian thriller. It is soon to be re-issued by Monsoon Books and I am now reading through the proofs – all 450+ pages of the book – to check it before publication. On re-reading the book, I see that this same theme that I explore in Bound Feet Blues also Continue reading

Imagine a grown woman with baby feet

It’s difficult for us in the modern world to imagine how small bound feet were. Whenever I say to people that some of the smallest bound feet were only 3 inches long, they register that that is small but it’s only when they see exactly how small 3 inches is, that the horror of it hits them.

In order to illustrate how tiny bound feet were for “Breaking Tradition”, my award-winning talk inspired by the stories in Bound Feet Blues, I went online to order a pair of baby shoes. I searched and searched for baby shoes that were 3 inches long but the smallest size that I could find came to just over 4 inches.

The photo above shows me holding those 4+ inch baby shoes during Continue reading