“六四”英文舞台劇，​4月11日免費入場 Beyond The Gate of Heavenly Peace Talking Tiananmen

“六四”英文舞台劇，​4月11日免費入場

演出時間：Monday, April 11th, at 7:30 pm

演出地點：74A East 4th St     212-475-7710 www.lamama.org

免費入場。希望紐約的朋友，特別是參加過六四的朋友前來參加這個朗誦會。

La MaMa E.T.C. Presents.

Experiments ‘11

Concert Readings of experimental plays at the La MaMa Club

George Ferencz, Curator

   BEYOND THE GATE

    OF HEAVENLY PEACE

              by Jianguo Wu & John Ashton

                    

                  The story of four young Chinese who leave Beijing in search of a better life in Australia.

Accompanied by a confucian spirit guide, each brings with them their own cover story while

harbouring a secret as to where they were on the day of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

                    Directed by George Ferencz

                                      Free Admission

there will be a talkback with the authors  following the reading

Monday, April 11th, at 7:30 pm

74A East 4th St    212-475-7710   www.lamama.org

Funding for this program provided in part by the NEW YORK STATE COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS, the Ford Foundation,

the AXE-HOUGHTON FOUNDATION and the JOHN GOLDEN FUND

Beyond The Gate of Heavenly Peace
Talking Tiananmen

Mention “Tiananmen Square” and most people over 30 might recall that blurry image of man in a white shirt (carrying what appeared to be a bag of groceries); facing down a convoy of tanks as he moved in a slow, and extraordinarily brave dance with a steel behemoth of the state.

But apart from that, we don’t have much else. And since that day over 20 years ago, the west’s relationship with China has transformed from mutually suspicious respect, to mutually suspicious acceptance as global trading partners. This new status is probably responsible for airbrushing of that tragic event from the conversation of history in the diplomatic context of “moving forward”.

There have been a few art shows and there have been poems, but where are the short stories, where are the novels for which this event is the central motif? And where is the film, albeit a work conforming to strict party line, by Zhang Yimou? One cannot underestimate the power of censorship in mainland China but it begs the question as to why there is so little work elsewhere.

So was this protest the voice of “bourgeois liberalism” as claimed by hardliner CCP Li Peng or, conversely, the less publicised disgust with neo-liberal privatisation which caused “shock markets” and unemployment?

“Beyond the Gate of Heavenly Peace” is less a protest piece against the event than an investigation of the lives and tumbled emotions of four young Chinese who leave the “home of the parents” to breathe the free air in the land of the “Golden Mountain” after the events of June, 1989.
Xiuguang is from an “official” CCP family; Wang Jun a deserting soldier; Jihong is a “rebel without a cause” and Lili a musician without a future.

Though each have an strong historical connection to the event, they initially appear to lack any complex, political awareness around it..  Yet the more they become immersed in their day-to-day survival in Manhattan, the closer they come to the realisation that you can leave China, but you can never leave China.