Double Yellow Line

The energetic disturbances have waned (for a little while - a week or so) and I can really tell the difference. I feel lighter in spirit, more relaxed, less sleepy and in a very good mood! Chinese New Year is near which means that the city will be relatively deserted since many will go back to their home city or family.

I just saw Huang Yi who's freshly back from one year at the army. He had written to me to ask me if I would consider working with him again on a new piece - this time without any technology inspired concept. I told him I may but that I needed to discuss it with him and hear about it.

So the piece, Double Yellow Line will be created for him and his boyfriend Hou Chien. They had been taking tango lessons and that may be one of the elements to be used in the music. But he wanted me to write essentially for the piano. Half of the score will be composed for the instrument (there will be one on stage, and Huang Yi has even asked me to give him and Hou Chien some lessons so that they could play something together. He hopes that they will practice hard enough to perform a short part of a very difficult piece. When I was asked what piece, I played him Lustoslavski's variations on Paganini's famous Caprice. Huang Yi got excited when he heard that. Well at least I can say that the boy is bold!). The rest of the soundtrack will be more technically challenging for me, since it's about sampling daily sounds and use them as a score to the dancers' movements. 

We'll start working in March. Huang Yi then said that as an encore, he will perform a duet he did a few years ago one Arvo Pärt's Spiegel am Spiegel  (that piece is used by everyone for everything!!!). I suggested to play it live instead of using a recording.

Then came the thorny question: Double Yellow Line is a gay piece, about this line which isn't to be crossed. How will he present the piece? Will the audience follow? How can he explain about that without shocking 'sensitive' ears?

"It's also about all the lines that separate human beings: religious belief, race, culture, values..." I told him. "And you could also say it's about the line between our inner world and the outside world... People love this kind of blah blah blah so they can put whatever they want in it" 

Huang Yi loved the idea.

The big day will be in late September at the National Theatre. Since it's an 'intimate' piece, it will be shown at the smaller Experimental theatre. 

Huang Yi