We are delighted to share the video of the complete one hour solo performance of Bound Feet Blues – A Life Told in Shoes. It is now up online on YouTube. So if you didn’t manage to get tickets for the live show – or if you did see the show on stage and would like a reprise – here it is for everyone to enjoy.
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The show run is now over but you can BUY BOUND FEET BLUES, THE BOOK – please click on the links below:
Watch the evolution of writer Yang-May Ooi as a performer in these three short videos which capture her performance of Bound Feet Blues in its three incarnations – from the very first scratch night performance in March 2014 to the full production in Nov/ Dec 2015.
This is the first ever performance of Bound Feet Blues in public. When Yang-May took to the floor, she was trying out an unfinished script without a director and just seeing where the experience would take her. In the audience was one of the producers of the South East Asian Arts Festival (SEA Arts Fest) who invited her to bring the completed piece to the Festival in Oct that year.
Yang-May captures the drama and tension of that first performance in the book version of Bound Feet Blues, available from Amazon.
The showcase performance was a one night performance at Tristan Bates Theatre, London that was sold out even before the show was widely publicised on the BBC and elsewhere. The showcase was directed by Jessica Higgs and produced by Eldarin Yeong with R&D funding from Arts Council, England. It was part of the SEA Arts Festival 2014. The performance was 4+ star reviewed and its success enabled Yang-May and her creative team to move forward with the three week full production the next year.
The full production ran for three weeks at the Tristan Bates Theatre. Of the 15 performances, 12 were largely sold out with people queuing for returns. The creative team now included Hua Tan who designed the beautiful set and evocative lighting, costumier Carol Alayne and production manager Crin Claxton. The production was supported by funding from Arts Council, England, THFC (The Housing Finance Corporation) and Maclay Murray Spens. It was part of the SEA Arts Festival 2015.
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The show run is now over but you can BUY BOUND FEET BLUES, THE BOOK – please click on the links below:
We are delighted to share with you highlights from the Nov/ Dec 2015 production of Bound Feet Blues – A Life Told in Shoes, the autobiographical solo theatre piece by writer/ performer Yang-May Ooi. You can watch the 2 min video below.
The show was directed by Jessica Higgs and produced by Eldarin Yeong with set and lighting design by Hua Tan.
The videographer was Continue reading
Yang-May Ooi, writer and performer of Bound Feet Blues, has been featured in Nee Hau, the online magazine for British Chinese and East Asian culture. You can read the full article by clicking on the image below.
Here is an extract: “From internationally best-selling fiction author to performing her personal story, with a three-week run at Tristan Bates Theatre scheduled from November 24th to December 12th2015, Yang-May has evolved to become the confident storyteller she is today, shining in her 50s. The show is part of the South East Asian Arts Festival 2015 and funded by The Arts Council and The Housing Finance Corporation. Yang-May is supported by a team of experts including Jessica Higgs, creative director, Eldarin Yeong, producer and Hua Tan, theatre designer.” Read the full article..
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You can buy tickets for Bound Feet Blues via bit.ly/bfbtickets
DETAILS
Tristan Bates Theatre
1A Tower St, Covent Garden WC2H 9NP
Tue 24 Nov – Sat 12 Dec, Tue – Sat at 7.30pm.
Tickets £16 / £12 concessions.
Q&As post-show, 27 Nov & 4 Dec.
Yang-May Ooi, writer/ performer of Bound Feet Blues, talks about what LGBTQ stories – and esp lesbian stories – can teach the wold about the universal human experiences of love, courage and heroism.
Bound Feet Blues is about more than bound feet. The brutal practice of footbinding in ancient China is a metaphor in the show for the cultural norms that bind us – as women and also in terms of our individual sexuality. An integral part of Continue reading
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
I am so excited that the Arts Council has granted funding for the development of Bound Feet Blues!
The funding enables us – my director Jessica Higgs and me – to work on the creation of the performance and explore the most meaningful way that the story can be brought to life on stage. Our work in progress will culminate in the showcase performance at the Tristan Bates Theatre in Oct – show details below.
One condition of the funding is that the Arts Council logo or an acknowledgement to the public funding they are giving us must appear wherever Bound Feet Blues is mentioned. For me, it feels a privilege to be able to display their logo alongside this project – their support is a public recognition of my transition as Continue reading
I would fall off these glittery black stilettos and I wonder what they would do to your ankles, feet and posture – but I can appreciate them from afar as fabulous art. Captured by Ann Bennett in Continue reading
I will be giving a TEDx style talk inspired by my research for my solo show Bound Feet Blues at the Inspiring Speakers Gala on Wed 9th July. The talk is called Breaking Tradition: How to Live Unbound and looks at the life lessons that I learnt from exploring the story of my great gandmother who had bound feet.
Yang-May Ooi talking about bound feet – her left hand stands in for a crippled bound foot
If you enjoyed the work in progress performance of Bound Feet Blues on 26 March, my talk will look behind the show at my personal crisis that led me to find out the story of my family heritage. I also talk about the life lessons that I was able to draw from the courage and spirit I saw in my great grandmother who was able to transcend the brutal limitation imposed on her by her cultural tradition.
If you haven’t managed to see the show but would like to get a flavour of what is in store when the full length performance of Bound Feet Blues is showcased later this year, Breaking Tradition will give you a feel for what lies ahead. Someone who saw me do a snippet of the talk said: “I feel as if I’ve just seen a feature film in 4 minutes!”
I’ll be giving this talk as part of … Continue reading
Over on my main blog StoryGuru.co.uk, I’ve just written about the differences between writing for performance and writing novels. As a novelist, I had a steep learning curve working on the script for Bound Feet Blues and found lots to love about this fresh genre of story performance, and also lots that has been a challenge in terms of creating the text.
In contrast to 180,000+ for each of my novels, I have had to…. Continue reading
Bound Feet Blues - A Life Told in Shoes 