Between History and Myth: Sea Legends in Hong Kong's waters from mermaids to pirates
If the great sea had memories, what would it record about us? In this dialogue session, come share with us your stories with the sea.
From ancient wars to sea goddesses, from fish-human hybrid legends to legendary female pirates, the continuous waves of historical stories have nurtured maritime civilizations generation after generation. Inspired by the ancestral legends of the human-fish hybrid ‘Lo Ting’ and the pirate queen ‘Zheng Yi Sao’, “Beyond the Shore" (Peng Chau version) connects mythology, history, and gender through an interactive dance performance, and invites the audience to embark on a journey of self-reflection.
Concept/ text/ performance:
Evelyn Wan
Concept/ choreography/ performance: Alysa Leung
Video direction/ Visual and sound design: Anson Sham
Beyond The Shore 2.0- lecture performance
The 13th International Convention of Asia Scholars (Surabaya)
exhibition
Surabaya Cultural Centre Balai Pemuda, Barat
Between history and myth: Sea legends in Hong Kong's waters from mermaids to pirates
2-channel video installation,
30 mins on loop
This session makes use of the method of artistic research, specifically deep mapping (Pearson and Shanks 2001; Wan 2019) to study the gendered bodies in sea legends in Hong Kong. Through this project, we map oceanic narratives of myth and history, to reinvestigate Hong Kong's coastal histories and role as a port city in the colonial era. This work takes on an ocean-centric/ archipelagic perspective that focuses on coastal exchanges of bodies, goods, and knowledges and the relations between islands and ports in the South China Sea.
For the edition at ICAS Surabaya, two gendered bodies in particular are of interest: the little known Hong Kong mermaid myth of Lo Ting, and the pirate queen Zheng Yi-Sao active in the early 19th century on the Southern coast of China. The research thinks through the role of such feminised bodies as representations of the oppressed water-dwelling ethnic minority (Tanka people), and as figurations of traumatic histories of war and conflict in Southern China. As such, we turn to forgotten legends in the margins of official historical records to recuperate ocean-centric historical narratives as new historiographies of the Southern China coast.
The session responds to the conference section theme artistically and academically through a dual-channel video installation and a live lecture performance. The video presents the artistic research process and selected excerpts of dance performances from the performance series, created by film director, Anson Sham. The lecture performance by Dr Evelyn Wan, with live dance performances by Alysa Leung, will be followed by a Q&A session at the end. The lecture performance contextualises the historical research and reflects on the relationship between gender, history, and myth in Hong Kong's waters, while sharing with the audience the narratives of these female sea legends.
lecture performance
Balai Pemuda, Alun Alun
Her Untangled Histories
The 40-minute lecture performance featured stories of Chinese diasporic migration between China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Europe, and narrates the hybridity of Hong Kong identity through Lo Ting and Zheng Yi Sao.
The work also explores the themes of memory and archive using knot art, video art, and AI-generated images.
Evelyn Wan
(Concept/ text/ performance)
Alysa Leung
(Concept/ choreography/ performance)
Anson Sham
(Video direction/ Visual and sound design)
.jpg)
LIVE PERFORMANCE
As one of the invited artists by Let’s Be Together Arts Festival (Taiwan) and Itoshima International Art Festival, we performed four site-specific performances in front of the Shrine about the sea legends of our coastal city, Hong Kong. The audience is also part of the ritual.
