JAMES STRECKER: Please tell us about one or more projects that you have been working on or have recently completed. Why exactly do they matter to you and why should they matter to us?
NJO KONG KIE: I have a production running from May 16 to 26 at the Berkeley Street Upstairs Theatre at Canadian Stage. At its core a song cycle for voice and piano, I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron is a musical and theatrical setting of the Mandarin poetry of contemporary Chinese poet Xu Lizhi.
In 2010, a number of workers committed suicide at the Shenzhen factory of Foxconn, the world’s largest contract manufacturer of electronics for many of our popular digital devices. In 2014, 24-year-old Xu Lizhi, working at the same plant, did the same. Xu was a poet, known as one of the most promising young writers in China’s worker-poet literary movement, comprised of young labourers writing about the working class. His death sparked headlines in China and across the globe. This news showed up on my social media feed. I was quite shocked and overcome by the tragedy, of course, and at the same time extremely moved by Xu’s words.
Writing very plainly in a way but with astounding imagination, Xu gives us a vivid glimpse of life on the assembly line and gives voice to millions of workers worldwide. What he describes is not just the story of one factory, but of many factories and not only in China but all over the world. And the hopelessness and purposelessness he speaks of in his poetry is not limited to the experience of only factory workers either, workers in white-collar jobs experience it too. And I as a freelance artist, experience it as well. His poetry resonates greatly with me, and prompted me to create this work. I think the audience would appreciate discovering this poet and finding out what he has to say.
JS: How did doing these projects change you as a person and as a creator?
NKK: Despite the immeasurable differences of our circumstance, I really resonate deeply with Xu’s longing for home and family, his desire for love, his lament of the drudgery of jobs, and his questions around the meaning of life, and the relevance of artistic pursuits.
Reading Xu’s insightful, haunting and often gut-wrenching words reminded me how global and inter-connected our lives are. Working on this piece reminds me constantly of the innumerous people, near and far, whose struggles, often unseen, unheard and forgotten, provide the amenities for our modern-day life. It is easy to get complacent in the relative comforts of our day to day. The work made me ponder the role, however small we think it is, each of us plays in this world.
When writing this work, I am mindful of the song cycle tradition of Schubert and Schumann, but of course of Mahler, whose Das Lied von der Erde set music to German translation of Tang Dynasty’s poems that speak of life and solitude and melancholy and yes death. And the moon figures as prominently in Xu Lizhi’s poems as in the Tang poetry, except now it takes on a completely different poetic association. In my mind are also songs of Jacques Brel and Chinese traditional music as well. This work certainly embodies different aspects of the cultures that I have lived.
The biggest challenge of the work comes in the decision to stage this work as a solo performance. Conceptually, I do see a parallel between being alone on stage and Xu’s solitary journey as a poet. Doing it in this form, I am shadowing the poet’s creative journey in my own. Just as the poet had found his own way to his artistic expression, I am challenging myself to respond to his words in multiple ways, whether through setting the text to music, discovering what my voice wants to do, or how my body wants to respond to the poetry. I have been coaching with Stacie Dunlop on vocal and William Yong on movement to bring out the artistic impulses in me that I have not previously explored.
I hope that echoing Xu’s solitary experience in the form of a solo-performance allows the work to resonate more authentically and with much more immediacy, spontaneity and fragility.
JS: What might others not understand or appreciate about the work you produce or do?
NKK: Haha, “others” is such a broad group of people to summarize.
We do of course make assumption of people but I have been proven wrong many times. So, anything I can name would all be insecurities (and there are many) that I feel about my own work and much less about what this large group of “other people” may feel about them.
JS: What are the most important parts of yourself that you put into your work?
NKK: Empathy and a sense of play.
JS: What are your biggest challenges as a creative person?
NKK: The fear of making mistake is quite strong. I long for perfect solution. But in the end, I tend to take the first decision I make despite having spent lots of time weighing the options over and over.
Not taking enough risks. I take only calculated risks. While this may have helped to protect my ego, it may also have slowed down my progress.
I need to be way more organized so that I am not always racing against the clock and actually have the peace of mind to enjoy the process. But after so many years of doing just the opposite, I have kind of convinced myself that this is just how I roll and that I should just trust that things would happen. While some things do get done, other things do fall by the wayside. And so, I am always racing to catch up.
I don’t schedule time off for myself, and many freelancers will know this challenge, we have really blurred boundaries of work and leisure. We feel un-productive when taking time off.
JS: Imagine that you are meeting two or three people, living or dead, whom you admire because of their work in your form of artistic expression. What would you say to them and what would they say to you?
NKK: Right now, the person I would most like to speak to is Xu Lizhi. I would thank him for sharing his life experience with us with such beauty and profundity. I hope he would be happy with our effort.
As for people in my own artistic expression, I would love to meet Jacques Brel and his arranger(s). I just love their work. I will ask them about their creative process.
JS: Please describe at least one major turning point in your life that helped to make you who you are as a creative artist.
NKK: Early on in my work with La La La Human Steps, which was my first experience as a musician on a big stage, I discovered that the nerve I experienced on stage, although quite palpable, was also manageable. I realize the importance of choosing the right repertoire for yourself, preparing sufficiently and committing to the tasks at hand.
When Wayne Strongman of Tapestry Opera accepted me into the LibLab program as a composer, he gave me the encouragement to work towards being one.
JS: What are the hardest things for an outsider to understand about your life as a person in the arts?
NKK: This is of course standard for many freelance artists – that we can live with so much uncertainty – with hugely fluctuating income, no safety net whatsoever, always having to hustle for opportunities, always being evaluated for our work and always dealing with “rejections” (by granting bodies, presenters, peers, critics, audience and yes, by ourselves even), dealing with imposter syndrome, not being able to separate our artistic identity from that of our person, having to do so much admin and producing work ourselves (say a good 80% of my time) in order to get anything up on stage…
JS: Please tell us what you haven’t attempted as yet that you would like to do in the arts? Why the delay so far?
NKK: I should like to learn to write for a larger ensemble. I have mostly stuck to writing smaller size work so that I can self-produce and tour them. Funding, even when they are available, is never sufficient. So, I remain small and nimble in order to make things happen. Working on a large-scale project does really rely on major institutions to step forward and that just has not happened yet. I should also like to write a proper pop song, or a piece of electronic dance music. But as long as I get to write, I am thankful.
JS: If you could re-live your life in the arts, how would you change it and why?
NKK: If I ever discovered the moment and circumstance that made me such a cautious person, then I would like to change it.
JS: Let’s talk about the state of the arts in today’s society, including the forms in which you work. What specifically gives you hope and what specifically do you find depressing?
NKK: I often engage in hybrid form, so pitching them to presenters and the audience can be challenging. Finding the right vocabulary to describe the work is difficult. But interdisciplinary approach is not new and audience is finding ways to receive it for sure, so that is hopeful.
But in general, pitching anything is challenging. There are so many choices, and only 24 hours a day. And we all have limited energy. Diversifying our audience is so necessary but getting people to engage in unfamiliar activity is difficult. Adding distance to it and you have a very steep hill to climb. I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron can serve the Mandarin speaking community quite well, but getting the audience to come from the Greater Toronto area to a downtown venue to see a production in an uncommon form by artists they don’t know is a big challenge.
And given our limited resources, there is no way to do a major campaign. So, we put our outreach focus in the downtown community, but over time, I would really like to attract the audience downtown. But transit between the suburbs and downtown is really difficult. I had friends performing with the Hong Kong Ballet a while back and they were performing in Markham, and on those particular days, I just couldn’t spare the 3+ hours on transit to go see them perform. That’s frustrating.
JS: What exactly do you like about the work you create and/or do?
NKK: What I generally like in other people’s work and what I aspire to create are works that offer both a visceral and cerebral experience at the same time.
JS: In your creative life thus far, what have been the most helpful comments you have heard about your work?
NKK: Simple works do not need to be simplistic. This ties back to the work of Xu Lizhi. His poetry may consist of simple and ordinary words, but they offer the most profound meaning.
JS: Finally, what do you yourself find to be the most intriguing and/or surprising things about you?
NKK: That I have somehow managed to make and produce work at all.