My Old Home Pretext: Interactive Performance

Abstract

The concept of return is at the heart of ‘My Old Home Pre-text’, but in a very different political context, that of China in the 1920’s. A man whose name we never know, braves the freezing cold to make the journey by boat from Peking (now Beijing) with a clear purpose in mind, to sell the old home he last saw twenty years ago and to bring his mother and niece back to the big city with him. He travels resolutely, but is unprepared for the wave of emotions that wash over him as he meets his old friend and questions the lives they are living. Lu Xun (1881-1936) wrote the story on which this pretext was based in 1921 when 2000 years of imperial rule had just ended. Revolts and uprisings had taken place, modernization had begun, but society had not changed and he criticizes this. Through a series of detailed frames participants engage with the mans’ search for hope.