How can performance art be more accessible to wider audiences

This week I went back and forth with the question and drove myself crazy but at the end I met my academic angle and she gave me the courage to finally decide on a question that my tutor gave me inspiration before on my tutorial: How can performance art be more relevant to today’s living?

Since I attached a mind map and a process snail that my course leader recommended us to do in this week’s class, and it shows the process, there is no need to review how I stuggled to find my question again. Everyone can be struggled at some point, it’s just a common thing. Other than that, I want to show my progress of being a performance artist. On Sunday, I decided to make a seek love poster as I find dating app very inefficient and I never tried campus love in my life. On Monday, I printed 27 copies of my seeking love poster and posted all over CSM and on Tuesday my friend helped my to post 6 copies at LCC. So far I got many friends taking pictures of themselves and my posters and one person from LCC messaged me. But the outcome of whether I can find a lover or not doesn’t matter that much. I just want to take the first step to be bold and do something I dare not to do and overcome or drench myself in the inner awkwardness to get used to future action of performance art. The seeking love poster is like a kindergarten towards performance art to me. On Thursday, I went to a workshop called Moving to Reflect at M103 CSM, and tried my first move of expressing my body, I made a vedio record, I know I am very far from being artistic but I am open to any judgement. Laugh at me as you can, I am brave enough to try. Laugh at me when I have my 1st piece of performance art work, laugh at me if I am successful, laugh at me if I failed. Laugh at me as hard as you can. And I will survive and be tough from it. Okay, enough for the little “poetry”, let’s move on. After that I went to see Stage 1 BA PDP Festival and saw many well-prepared performance art, this is the very first time I ever saw performance art in real life, and I was amazed. I gathered some inspiration not like directly knowing what I want to do, but opened a gate for my potential future work. After that, I came across a broken hand model at CSM swap shop and made a series of photo with the help of my friend, which I think is also a nice try of making art. On Friday, I hosted an online sharing session for Chinese comedians in Spain for about 2.5 hours, since stand-up comedy is also a kind of performance, I think during my sharing session, I gathered my thoughts once again on how to get prepared for a performance show. On Saturday, I went to see arts dance showcase at CSM platform theatre, it contians so many different kind of dances and was really good, I also came across an alumni who basically has a map of voguing in London in her mind and she introduced me a lot of old way voguing classes, which I always wanted to try but didn’t find any ways to try before.

After a fruitful week of struggling, learning, sharing and absorbing new things, here I am to proudly present my draft towards this question:

What:

The area I intend to research is performance art, and the precise question I will be addressing is: How can performance art be more relevant to today’s living?

Why:

This topic is valuable to me because become an artist is a next level of my life journey, and performance art is the most approachable kind of art for me now, and I really want to open-up my body since I used to be an uptight person. To the world, this topic is of great value because I want to make performance art more approachable to wider audiences.

How:

To accomplish my project in practical terms, as a fresher to performance art, I will use literature review to know more about theory and history of performance art. To make my performance art come true, I must combine theory with practice, thus, I will watch many different kind performance both online and offline and go to different kinds of body movement workshops both at campus and society. I will make full use of intervention pop-up showcase to test my idea, and when there is no pop-up showcase scheduled, I will get feedback by chatting with my peers, go to office hour to chat with tutors, or interview people, or posting my work on social media, very rarely I might use questionnaires (but personally I want to avoid using questionnaire because it is usually too simple to get deeper feedback and I can barely find questionnaires interesting). And for now I want to make a closely-life-related performance art as my outcome. But my outcome might change through my process of developing my idea.

My rough schedule is:

May-Mid June: Get to know about performance art by second hand research and watch some performance shows which is highly related to body expression. Start to participate in body-related workshops.

Late June-Mid September: Try to make my performance art, directly perform it or record and play it and gain external feedback.

Late September-November: Make my performance art into series and prepare for graduation showcase festival.

What If:

I hope this project can make performance art more approachable to wider audiences. I want to break the situation of the wider audience cannot understand performance art, and find it hard to link the written introduction with the art itself. I want the art itself be more down-to-earth instead of being too high to be popular. At the end of the course, I want to position myself as an artist or a performance artist. And for my stakeholders, I hope more people can be the audience of performance art and can relate performance art more to their daily life.

Reading List:

McCarthy, K. F. (2001). The Performing Arts in a New Era. [Online] Google Books. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=zh-CN&lr=&id=JZDcgYr0-ukC&oi=fnd&pg=PR3&dq=performance+art&ots=gIQJ7yTENV&sig=CRwU-ZICdTtCtVARSxnnvnhElpU&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Howell, A. (2000). The Analysis of Performance Art: A Guide to its Theory and Practice (1st ed.). London: Routledge. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315079813.

Learning Agreement:

1 Be bold and crazy, be unlimited.

2 Have faith, never let words put you down.

3 Leave sometime to explore the world, that is also an important part to contriburte to the project.

4 Spend more time to sleep, keep energetic.

Evidences:

Written Proposal

What: 

The area I intend to research is the well-being of stand-up comedian. And the precise question I will be addressing is: How can Chinese stand-up comedians improve their well-being from the negative reflection from the audience?

Why:

As a stand-up comedian myself, I used to and still struggling to manage my well-being when facing negative comments from the audience. Offline on stage, the negative reflection can be very direct, that is, you tell a joke, the audience don’t laugh. Online is even worse, no matter whichever app I am using, the big data assumes that I am interested in content related to my name or stand-up comedy, and it keep recommending me the negative reflection from the audience, and also how great other comedians can be. Even though I also receive positive comments, I still care about negative comments more. If I am fed up with one app and want to change into another, the big data in another app will continue assuming me like those contens. And this is also the same to the world, some comedians even quit using internet because of that.

How:

To accomplish my project in practical terms, I want to talk to a few comedians with different background, different status, different geographic areas, get to know better about the well-being problem they are facing, as well as talk to some founders to see their attitudes and opinions toward the well-being of comedians. I want to seek for opportunity to set up an unfunny open-mic in a gong show format, if you made people laugh, you are out. At the same time, it can also make the audience more relaxed, because if you ask others not to laugh, out of a restricted mentality or a mischievous mentality, they will all want to laugh more. By that way, comedians can gain confidence by knowing being funny can be very easy and not being funny at all is actually hard. 

My rough schedule is:

April-Mid June: Chat with comedians and founders. Get a rough idea about unfunny open-mic.

Late June-Mid September: Carry out unfunny open-mic around China and gain external feedback.

Late September-November: Theoretical summary and prepare for graduation showcase festival.

What if:

This project will gain positive implications on giving a place for comedians to have a rest and chill out from the stress audiences brought to them, thus improve their well-being. And unfunny open-mic have business potential as this reversed kind of open-mic is a blank market now. And it will bring positive impact as it can enhance Chinese stand-up comedy industry. At the end of the course, my position will be a influencer of Chinese stand-up industry and the producer and intellectual property owner of unfunny open-mic. And for my stakeholders, comedians can benifit from this project by raising their wellbeing, founders can benifit from being introduced a new type of content of the performance, audiences can benifit from being more chill to enjoy shows and hopefully letting go some of the critical view.

Reading List:

Smith, John. “An Analysis of Disability Studies.” Disability Studies Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 4, 2010, https://ojs.library.osu.edu/index.php/dsq/article/view/6163.

Hoffner, C. A., & Bond, B. J. (2022). Parasocial relationships, social media, & well-being. Current Opinion in Psychology, 45, 101306. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X22000082

Learning Agreement

1 Study hard when study, enjoy myself fully when relaxing.

2 Stay optimistic as possible.

3 Have faith in what I am doing.

4 Leave sometime to explore the world, that is also an important part to contriburte to the project.

5 Spend more time to sleep, keep energetic.

In 2021, Wang Yi, who is studying tourism at the University of Alicante in Spain, was affected by the COVID pandemic and returned to his hometown, Shenyang, located in the northern part of China, to start taking online classes. In Shenyang, Wang Yi had his Chinese stand-up comedy open mic for the first time. Wang Yi is not only interested, but also very talented. As a newcomer to the industry, he was admitted to a senior training camp in the industry in the same year. But at the same time, due to the impact of the pandemic, the time of the training camp was frequently postponed. He wanted to improve himself so much that he postponed his original plan to return to Spain and his was being left behind on his study. After returning to Spain, Wang Yi still kept thinking about comedy. In order to give himself a stage, he decided to set up a Chinese stand-up comedy club while studying in Spain. Since there are only more than 3,000 Chinese in Alicante, Wang set his sights on Barcelona, which has more than 60,000 Chinese people, and Madrid, which has more than 70,000 Chinese people. In October 2022, he held the first Chinese stand-up comedy show in Barcelona without a club. In January 2023, he established a Chinese stand-up comedy club named Deng Deng Comedy in Barcelona. While everything is going well, Wang Yi also faces many challenges. Living in Alicante, he must frequently travels to Barcelona and Madrid, extra trips requires more money. Moreover, he has to balance his study and career. In addition to school lifr, his spare time is filled with performances and club operations. Looking at venues, negotiating sponsorships, doing customer service, selling tickets, marketing… Because he can’t find like-minded people to help, he can only do everything by himself. If there is some time left, he will devote himself to perform in Spanish to maintain his stage enthusiasm. Wang Yi, who only wants to be an actor instead of an founder or operator, often has no time to write jokes because he has to run a club. But no matter how difficult the situation was, he never let down the love in his heart.

In every corner of the world, Wang Yi’s story is not just one case. Stand-up comedy, a form of comedy originated in western countries, imported to China. After years of localization and development, Chinese stand-up comedy became an emerging cultural industry and is spreading overseas. Now, there are more than 30 mandarin comedy clubs overseas, covering 4 continents: Asia, Europe, North America and Australia. Compared with Western stand-up comedy, the content of overseas Chinese stand-up comedy will be more oriented towards life topics. Whether from the perspective of the content material or audience acceptance, everyone tends to avoid taboo topics.

One of the reasons why Chinese stand-up comedy are booming overseas is that there are not many forms of entertainment available to overseas ethnic Chinese. Many forms are too costly and difficult to bring overseas. Stand-up comedy is light in form and easy to spread, making overseas Chinese cultural life more diverse. At the same time, in a situation where Asians tend to be less-advantaged groups, Chinese stand-up comedy is a very good channel for Asians to express their voices, and it is also a way to provide great value to the Chinese community.

In the process of development, overseas Chinese stand-up comedy is also experiencing some resistance and challenges. First of all, it is difficult for overseas Chinese stand-up comedy to make a profit. Overseas labor cost is high, prices of rental is high, and limited by the number of overseas Chinese, the potential audience is naturally smaller than that of local language stand-up comedy, and the publicity methods are more limited, so it is difficult to break through the circle of niche culture. This has led to a certain extent that there are almost no full-time Chinese stand-up comedians or operators in overseas clubs. Everyone is willing to do it out of pure love. For example, the three largest clubs in the United States are all non-profit organizations. However, negotiating theaters and performances requires a lot of time. The part-time mode also limits the speed of expansion of overseas clubs and there is still plenty of space for growth. In most overseas regions, the profitability of Chinese stand-up comedy is deeply affected by celebrity effect. Many clubs still rely on comedy celebrities in China, but inviting comedy celebrities will also be affected by the difficulty of each person’s visa application. Although celebrities who travel across the ocean can bring in more box office revenue, the cost of inviting celebrities from across the country is high, coupled with high theater rental and labor costs, profitability is still a huge challenge. Many times, even if clubs are facing losses, they still invite celebrities from China, hoping to provide better performances to open up the market and expand publicity, and to create more learning and communicating opportunities for local comedians. At the same time, the differences between the consumption habits of locals and Chinese in overseas markets also make profits more difficult. Take the UK for example. The British drinking culture is very popular in the UK, so English stand-up comedy club can usually generate considerable additional income from drinks. The Chinese consumption habits will subconsciously exclude potential bundled sales, which also makes the profit path of alcohol sharing difficult to realize. In situations where profitability is difficult, even if profits are generated, profits are often invested in potential future costs.

In addition, the overseas Chinese stand-up comedy market is unstable and highly variable. Comedians are unstable. On the one hand, a large portion of overseas comedians and audiences are international students, who are easily lost due to graduation and personal development plans. Therefore, it is difficult for overseas clubs to reserve a lot of talent and cultivate a stable audience. On the other hand, there are not enough good local comedians. Although some comedians may have talent, they might have no motivation. Their focus in life might be full-time work or study. They only regard stand-up comedy as a small hobby in their spare time and do not consider being professional. At the same time, comedians’ willingness and comedians’ motivation are also closely related. Restricted by the language environment and cultural environment, overseas Chinese stand-up comedy have limited opportunities for advancement. The highest point a comedian can reach overseas is to become a mature actor and receive more and larger performances. But China can provide more opportunities, such as participating in online programs and becoming a star. In addition, compared with China, which has a complete training system, overseas Chinese stand-up comedy have difficulties in honing their materials. Fewer resources means a more tortuous learning process. Overseas comedians needs more professional comedians to communicate with and learn from.

Despite many obstacles, overseas Chinese stand-up comedy also have many highlight moments. Here are some examples. The initial stages of clubs are generally expected to be difficult, but with the enthusiastic support of overseas Chinese, the ticket sales of many clubs far exceeded expectations after the first gig. Hurrah Comedy in London held two local annual Chinese stand-up comedy competitions. Amare Comedy is being reported by multiple mainstream media. Crazy Laugh in New York had cross-border cooperation with a number of commercial institutions. They also established good cooperative relations with Georgetown University and Columbia University. Van Comedy in Vancouver held a very successful celebrity show. They made the unimaginable impossible possible. All these prove that despite difficulties and resistance, the overseas market is still very broad and the future is promising.

In the future, overseas Chinese stand-up comedy will have a broad development space. Clubs needs to cultivate the local market, local comedians and their own audience, break through the model of only do it for love, and seek a more sustainable profit model based on high-quality content. At present, overseas Chinese stand-up comedy are more like small parties in the Chinese community, with only a very small number of non-Chinese Chinese speakers participating. But in fact, Chinese speakers are actually a very broad concept. For example, there are many Chinese speakers in Singapore and Malaysia in Southeast Asia. In the future, overseas Chinese stand-up comedy can expand the market, make the audience wider, the content more diversified, the publicity methods and can be more inclusive, the content can be more culturally diversified, break the age, experience and social composition solidification of local comedians and include different voices. Stand-up comedy is a good way to get to know each other, the future of overseas Chinese stand-up comedy goes far beyond the narcissism of small communities. We hope that in the future, overseas Chinese stand-up comedy can have an influence on mainstream groups, and more Chinese speakers can express themselves in the mainstream.

Credits: (alphabetical order)

Amare Comedy (Tokyo, Japan, Asia)

Crazy Laugh (New York, USA, North America)

Dengdeng Comedy (Barcelona/Madrid, Spain, Europe)

Hurrah Comedy (London, UK, Europe)

Loadingzone comedy (Melbourne, Australia, Australia)

Van comedy (Vancouver, Canada, North America)

Stand-up comedy, a form of comedy originated in western countries, imported to China. After years of localization and development, Chinese stand-up comedy became an emerging cultural industry and is spreading overseas. Now, there are more than 30 mandarin comedy clubs overseas, covering 4 continents: Asia, Europe, North America and Australia.

One of the reasons why Chinese stand-up comedy are booming overseas is that there are not many forms of entertainment available to overseas ethnic Chinese. Many forms are too costly and difficult to bring overseas. Stand-up comedy is light in form and easy to spread, making overseas Chinese cultural life more diverse. At the same time, in a situation where Asians tend to be less-advantaged groups, Chinese stand-up comedy is a very good channel for Asians to express their voices, and it is also a way to provide great value to the Chinese community.

In the process of development, overseas Chinese stand-up comedy is also experiencing some resistance and challenges. First of all, it is difficult for overseas Chinese stand-up comedy to make a profit. Overseas labor cost is high, prices of rental is high, and limited by the number of overseas Chinese, the potential audience is naturally smaller than that of local language stand-up comedy, and the publicity methods are more limited, so it is difficult to break through the circle of niche culture. This has led to a certain extent that there are almost no full-time Chinese stand-up comedians or operators in overseas clubs. Everyone is willing to do it out of pure love. For example, the three largest clubs in the United States are all non-profit organizations. However, negotiating theaters and performances requires a lot of time. The part-time mode also limits the speed of expansion of overseas clubs and there is still plenty of space for growth. In most overseas regions, the profitability of Chinese stand-up comedy is deeply affected by celebrity effect. Many clubs still rely on comedy celebrities in China, but inviting comedy celebrities will also be affected by the difficulty of each person’s visa application. Although celebrities who travel across the ocean can bring in more box office revenue, the cost of inviting celebrities from across the country is high, coupled with high theater rental and labor costs, profitability is still a huge challenge. Many times, even if clubs are facing losses, they still invite celebrities from China, hoping to provide better performances to open up the market and expand publicity, and to create more learning and communicating opportunities for local comedians. At the same time, the differences between the consumption habits of locals and Chinese in overseas markets also make profits more difficult. Take the UK for example. The British drinking culture is very popular in the UK, so English stand-up comedy club can usually generate considerable additional income from drinks. The Chinese consumption habits will subconsciously exclude potential bundled sales, which also makes the profit path of alcohol sharing difficult to realize. In situations where profitability is difficult, even if profits are generated, profits are often invested in potential future costs.

In addition, the overseas Chinese stand-up comedy market is unstable and highly variable. Comedians are unstable. On the one hand, a large portion of overseas comedians and audiences are international students, who are easily lost due to graduation and personal development plans. Therefore, it is difficult for overseas clubs to reserve a lot of talent and cultivate a stable audience. On the other hand, there are not enough good local comedians. Although some comedians may have talent, they might have no motivation. Their focus in life might be full-time work or study. They only regard stand-up comedy as a small hobby in their spare time and do not consider being professional. At the same time, comedians’ willingness and comedians’ motivation are also closely related. Restricted by the language environment and cultural environment, overseas Chinese stand-up comedy have limited opportunities for advancement. The highest point a comedian can reach overseas is to become a mature actor and receive more and larger performances. But China can provide more opportunities, such as participating in online programs and becoming a star. In addition, compared with China, which has a complete training system, overseas Chinese stand-up comedy have difficulties in honing their materials. Fewer resources means a more tortuous learning process. Overseas comedians needs more professional comedians to communicate with and learn from.

Despite many obstacles, overseas Chinese stand-up comedy also have many highlight moments. Here are some examples. The initial stages of clubs are generally expected to be difficult, but with the enthusiastic support of overseas Chinese, the ticket sales of many clubs far exceeded expectations after the first gig. Hurrah Comedy in London held two local annual Chinese stand-up comedy competitions. Amare Comedy is being reported by multiple mainstream media. Crazy Laugh in New York had cross-border cooperation with a number of commercial institutions. They also established good cooperative relations with Georgetown University and Columbia University. Van Comedy in Vancouver held a very successful celebrity show. They made the unimaginable impossible possible. All these prove that despite difficulties and resistance, the overseas market is still very broad and the future is promising.

In the future, overseas Chinese stand-up comedy will have a broad development space. Clubs needs to cultivate the local market, local comedians and their own audience, break through the model of only do it for love, and seek a more sustainable profit model based on high-quality content. At present, overseas Chinese stand-up comedy are more like small parties in the Chinese community, with only a very small number of non-Chinese Chinese speakers participating. But in fact, Chinese speakers are actually a very broad concept. For example, there are many Chinese speakers in Singapore and Malaysia in Southeast Asia. In the future, overseas Chinese stand-up comedy can expand the market, make the audience wider, the content more diversified, the publicity methods and can be more inclusive, the content can be more culturally diversified, break the age, experience and social composition solidification of local comedians and include different voices. Stand-up comedy is a good way to get to know each other, the future of overseas Chinese stand-up comedy goes far beyond the narcissism of small communities. We hope that in the future, overseas Chinese stand-up comedy can have an influence on mainstream groups, and more Chinese speakers can express themselves in the mainstream.

Credits: (alphabetical order)

Amare Comedy (Tokyo, Japan, Asia)

Crazy Laugh (New York, USA, North America)

Dengdeng Comedy (Barcelona/Madrid, Spain, Europe)

Hurrah Comedy (London, UK, Europe)

Loadingzone comedy (Melbourne, Australia, Australia)

Van comedy (Vancouver, Canada, North America)