Watch the Evolution of a Performance – Bound Feet Blues [videos]

June 2, 2016May 19, 2016 / Yang-May Ooi / Leave a comment

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.

March 2014 – Scratch Night, Conway Hall

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.

Oct 2014 – Showcase, Tristan Bates Theatre

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.

Nov/ Dec 2015 – Full Production, Tristan Bates Theatre

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.

The show run is now over but you can BUY BOUND FEET BLUES, THE BOOK – please click on the links below:

AMAZON.CO.UK

AMAZON.COM

URBANE PUBLICATIONS

Meet The Centre for Solo Performance where writer/ performer Yang-May Ooi developed the script of Bound Feet Blues

November 23, 2015November 10, 2015 / Yang-May Ooi / Leave a comment

Bound Feet Blues was just an idea in the mind of writer/ performer Yang-May Ooi when she signed up for a workshop at The Centre for Solo Performance in January 2014. With the guidance of facilitators Luke Dixon and Sean Bruno and the feedback of the others workshop participants, Yang-May completed the script of Bound Feet Blues in 12 weeks. She performed a work-in-progress version of the piece at the Centre’s Going Solo scratch night in March 2014 at Conway Hall.

At the performance was one of the producers of the South East Asian (SEA) Arts Festival, Annie Kwan, who invited Yang-May to perform the completed show at that year’s festival in October. The showcase was performed at the Tristan Bates Theatre to a sold out audience and 4+ star reviews. Now, within 2 years of first starting the script, Yang-May and the Bound Feet Blues creative team have brought the show to full production, opening at Tristan Bates Theatre for a 3 week run on 24 November 2015.

The Centre for Solo Performance

Based in central London at historic Conway Hall, THE CENTRE FOR SOLO PERFORMANCE works with THE CONWAY COLLECTIVE in providing a specialist series of unique performance workshops, events and opportunities catering to writers, actors and performance artists interested in creating, developing, sharing solo performance work.

Seanhires Luke Dixon is a performance maker, writer, teacher and academic, internationally known for his innovative productions of Shakespeare, his site-specific performances, his teaching of actors and his research into performance. www.lukedixon.co.uk Sean Bruno has a wide range of experience in making, both solo and collaborative, performance work in various contemporary and traditional styles; including dance, spoken word, multimedia and site specific. www.seanbruno.co.uk

Their book Creating Solo Performance is now available as well. It is an innovative toolbox of exercises and challenges focused on providing you – the performer – with engaging and inspiring ways to explore and develop your idea both on the page and in the performance space. Creating Solo Performance by Sean Bruno and Luke Dixon £18.99

You can watch highlights from that first scratch night performance at Conway Hall below:

BUY TICKETS

**You can buy tickets for Bound Feet Blues via bit.ly/bfbtickets **

Continue reading →

One week to the opening night of Bound Feet Blues! Have you got your ticket yet?

November 17, 2015November 10, 2015 / Yang-May Ooi / Leave a comment

Yang-May Ooi’s astonishing one woman show Bound Feet Blues will open in one week’s time on Tuesday 24 November 2015 at Tristan Bates Theatre. Have you got your ticket yet?

Not yet? Don’t miss this extra-ordinary tour de force solo performance. You can still buy tickets via bit.ly/bfbtickets

Bound Feet Blues takes us back to ancient China to the inner chamber of a mother with bound feet as she describes and demonstrates the brutal practice of footbinding on her daughter. We may judge this in our modern times as cruel but if we were women living in that time, would we do the same out of love for our little girl?

We also see Yang-May as a tomboy aged 10 and as Continue reading →

Do you have knee high boots like Emma Peel?

August 28, 2014September 1, 2014 / Yang-May Ooi / Leave a comment

I was a great fan of The Avengers when I was a child.

I’d never seen a woman as feisty as Emma Peel before – and it opened up my mind to what a woman could be! Here she is in her famous catsuit and knee high boots…

Wow, or what?

But at that time, I was a tomboy and did not Continue reading →

How does a woman with bound feet “run away” from her family?

August 26, 2014August 26, 2014 / Yang-May Ooi / Leave a comment

How does a woman with bound feet “run away” from her family?

This is the question that has haunted me ever since I was a child when I heard the story of my great-grandmother who had bound feet.

Here is the story that has been passed down in my family, which I pieced together from different family members:

Great-grandfather was a hospital orderly in Taiping (a small town in Perak in Malaysia) when he came across a young woman with bound feet who Continue reading →

Bound Feet Blues: Inside the mind of a woman crippled by bound feet in ancient China

April 11, 2014August 11, 2014 / Yang-May Ooi / Leave a comment

What was it like to be a woman crippled by bound feet? This question has always haunted me ever since I was a child when I learnt about the bound feet women in China.

I have been researching this question for my story performance Bound Feet Blues.

You can read my essay about the practice of footbinding and how it affected generations of women emotionally and pyschologically over at my main blog StoryGuru.co.uk: see “Bound Feet Blues: What was it like to be a woman crippled by bound feet in ancient China?”

“For a thousand years, women crippled their daughters to create perfect dainty little bound feet which were beloved by men and became the currency for a good marriage. What was it like to be one of those women? Why did they carry on such a cruel practice?

…. [READ MORE]”