Ep. 35 - Staging Solitude (2021-22)

PuSh Play

Gabrielle Martin chats with composer Njo Kong Kie.

Show Notes

Gabrielle and Njo Kong Kie discuss:

• How did your relationship with PuSh start?

• What was the process of presenting work at PuSh?

• How do you interpret and react to the source material?

• How did you pivot to digital work during Covid?

• How does the work transition back to the live stage?

• How has your artistic practice grown over time?

About Njo Kong Kie

Njo Kong Kie (composer) is a composer for dance, opera and theatre. His works include music for the play Infinity by Hannah Moscovitch, the same-sex rom-com opera knotty together (with Anna Chatterton), and the music theatre work Mr. Shi and His Lover (with Wong Teng Chi) - the first ever Chinese language production at SummerWorks, Tarragon Theatre and the National Arts Centre English Theatre.

Long-serving music director of La La La Human Steps in Montreal, Kong Kie has further worked with choreographers Anne Plamondon, Aszure Barton, Shawn Hounsel and others, providing original music to their productions for companies such as Nederlands Dans Theater, Ballet National de L’Opera du Rhin, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Singapore Dance Theatre and Ballet BC. His soundtrack for TV documentaries includes Fisk: Untitled Portrait and China Rises.

In development: The Year of the Cello, a play with solo cello music set in Hong Kong in the 1920s (with Marjorie Chan); The Futures Market, an opera exploring the complex moral dimensions of the trade in human organs (with Douglas Rodger) and I swallowed a moon made of iron, a song cycle set to the haunting poems of Chinese poet Xu Lizhi (Canadian Stage, May 2019).

Kong Kie is the artistic producer of Music Picnic. More at www.musicpicnic.com.

Land Acknowledgement

This conversation was recorded in Tkaronto (Toronto), on the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. Tkaronto is covered by Treaty 13 signed with the Mississaugas of the Credit, and the Williams Treaties signed with multiple Mississaugas and Chippewa bands.

It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.

Show Transcript

Gabrielle Martin 00:02 Hello and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and play with form. I'm Gabrielle Martin, Push's Director of Programming, and in this special series of Push Play, we're revisiting the legacy of Push and talking to creators who have helped shape 20 years of innovative, dynamic, and audacious festival programming.

Gabrielle Martin 00:23 Today's episode features Neo -Conkey and the 2022 Push Festival. Born in Indonesia of Chinese heritage, Neo -Conkey is a Toronto -based musician and composer who creates and produces music theatre works in various forms.

Gabrielle Martin 00:37 Here's my conversation with Conkey.

Gabrielle Martin 00:43 I'm here with Nyo Kanki, good morning. Good morning. Yeah, and we are here in Takaranto, which is the home of many, traditional home of many First Nations, including the Mississauga of the Credit, the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Wendat and the Haudenosaunee.

Gabrielle Martin 01:00 And today is also the home of many other nations, including the Inuit and the Métis. And we're also at the Theatre Centre on the garden patio.

Njo Kong Kie 01:11 yes wonderful yes my my neighborhood theaters well center of theaters i guess and also a favorite cafe in the neighborhood yeah so we are here in the rooftop of the theater center

Gabrielle Martin 01:23 Yeah, thanks for recommending this place. And we'll talk about this neighborhood a bit more in a moment because it's your home where you've shot the digital version for the 2021 presentation of I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron.

Gabrielle Martin 01:36 So that's the project that was presented by Nyo at Push. But I just want to rewind a little bit and talk about how your relationship with Push began. Can you take us to the next thing?

Njo Kong Kie 01:48 Um, I'm like, yeah, I've, I've known about the push festival, of course, sometimes like before I even started creating work, you know, and, um, just, and I've met Norman a number of times through, um, at receptions or, you know, performing, uh, performing arts platform and arts market, those sort of situations that I've kind of always known about the festival.

Njo Kong Kie 02:11 And I've been to Vancouver with a lot of human stuffs quite a few times in the past, uh, as, as performer, uh, or musicians. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Just to distinguish, I'm not quite a dancer, not at that level anyhow.

Njo Kong Kie 02:24 And yeah. Uh, and so, so I think our paths, I, yeah, I've crossed paths with Norman quite a few times and yeah. But, uh, and, uh, when I first started sort of making work, of course, that that's kind of one of the first, uh, festivals that jumped out as we'd be.

Njo Kong Kie 02:40 Okay. This might be a possible collaborators in the future for some of the work.

Gabrielle Martin 02:46 Why is that just because of the kind of conversations you've had with Norman?

Njo Kong Kie 02:49 the kind of work that the festival has been presented or interested in, you know, I met Michael Green at the time of the high performance rodeo in Calgary and so, you know, through conversation and push, it's never really far away from the conversation, you know.

Njo Kong Kie 03:08 And often, I think in past you have done a lot of collaborations or co -presenting between the two festivals in the past, right? Yeah, yeah. So, that's kind of like, it's always in the conversation. And then when I made a work called Mr.

Njo Kong Kie 03:25 She and His Lover here at the Theatre Centre, actually as part of the Summer Works in 2016, and Franco Boni, who was then the artistic director of the Theatre Centre, really, I think he recommended to Norman that he should come and see the work while he was still here.

Njo Kong Kie 03:42 So, then we began a conversation actually about that piece of work going to a push, but it just never came to be. Yeah, so then, you know, in 2019, when after I made the ice roll of Monomaid of Iron, Franco again saw it and then, yeah, during the time that he was at the push festival, if he wanted to program this work, yeah, so that's how it came to pass.

Gabrielle Martin 04:10 Okay, so can you just tell us about the work I swallowed and made of iron? Can you just talk to us a little bit about what it is and the process of realizing it for the festival? Because you presented it in both 2021 in a digital version, because this was our very small mid -COVID festival.

Gabrielle Martin 04:26 And yours was one of a handful of pieces, and you were able to kind of pivot it to this beautifully realized digital version, and then also the in -person version in the 2022 festival. So yeah, you can just talk about that.

Njo Kong Kie 04:40 So essentially, I Swollen Moon, made of iron, is a song cycle. It's set to the poetry of a contemporary Chinese poet, who was a worker at a factory in Shenzhen, China, by the name of Xu Yizi. So during his short life of 24 years, he produced this body of work, of poetry, that spoke to his experience, especially as a migrant worker, from the rural part of China into the new city, so to speak, seeking his work and his way of survival.

Njo Kong Kie 05:19 So through his poetry, he talked about his own experience, but also, in a way, it is reflective of a larger group of populations that go through the same similar experiences. So I was very touched by his poetry and also, there is an instinctive connection, perhaps in some ways, because of the language as well, because it's all written in Chinese, obviously.

Njo Kong Kie 05:47 And so at the time of his death in 2014, I immediately thought, OK, I really would enjoy the privilege of being able to set these words to music. So it took a while before we were able to make that happen.

Njo Kong Kie 06:10 And at the time in 2019, in 2018 and 2019, I was an artist slash company in residence at the Canadian stage here in Toronto. So this is the second piece that we presented in the May, yeah, during that residence in May 2019.

Njo Kong Kie 06:27 It has actually gone through quite a few iterations in terms of format. We decided as a stage show, essentially, yeah, rather than a music recital. I can explain how you...

Gabrielle Martin 06:41 See the difference of those two things.

Njo Kong Kie 06:43 Yeah, so I guess, in a way, I could perform this sound cycle in a concert setting, I suppose, with just me and the piano, with nothing else, it could work, yeah, and I actually have done it also. But because I have, although I'm a musician, I work mostly with other artists, like whether it's dance or theater people, and so I have quite a few, I guess, influences coming from those practice.

Njo Kong Kie 07:16 And so when I wanted to put this on stage, the first thing I thought of, like, how can I realize it in a more theatrical setting? So I guess, in that sense, I think of that the onstage performance is more like a theatrical experience beyond the music.

Njo Kong Kie 07:36 I have collaborated in videos, in lights, and I had some coaching in movement, and obviously I had to sort of like get some coaching on my own performance, my SS as a singer. I didn't set out to write it for myself to sing.

Njo Kong Kie 07:53 It has always been thought that in the early part of the development, I always thought that I would play the piano and somebody else would sing it. But as we got into this staging part of the process, it became a little bit more evident to us, the people in the room, working on the work, it's much more impactful to have just one person.

Njo Kong Kie 08:19 Then even though I didn't set out to sort of embody the poet himself as a performer, but people read it anyhow, right? So while I wasn't trying to, but just because there's only one person on stage and he's talking about the solitary life of the poet and experience.

Njo Kong Kie 08:39 So I think it's as cleaner as a theater experience, and people can sort of get into it a lot more. So that's kind of ultimately what we decided to do, I guess maybe through the first couple months of starting to write the songs.

Njo Kong Kie 08:55 I came to that realization and then of course I had to sing.

Gabrielle Martin 08:58 I'm so glad you did. Like, I know for me, I discovered the project. I started it with Push in 2021. And as you mentioned, you'd already been in conversation with Franco. This is a project that had kind of been on the table, but then we were in a bit of limbo in the organization and Jason Dubois brought it to my attention at that point.

Gabrielle Martin 09:15 And I remember watching the video and just being so touched. It was so the emotional, the haunting emotional quality just jumped right off the video, which is hard to do from video. But it was really clear to me that this is such a special work.

Njo Kong Kie 09:31 think that the words, you know, speak volume, you know, by itself. And like, as far as for myself, my starting point is to how do I interpret or I guess, react to them in my own way. When I send an invitation to my collaborators to participate in this project, so I always just tell them we should all react to it in our own way, in our, through our own medium.

Njo Kong Kie 10:02 Yeah. And then we can put it together. So the process is a little bit, I would think that is quite organic as everybody jumps in with their contributions and then we collectively kind of shape it to the form.

Njo Kong Kie 10:16 It is so, so it didn't really start from, yeah, I guess I didn't like, maybe for all the creations the same, like you don't really quite know where you're going to end up. And this is where we end.

Gabrielle Martin 10:26 And then for 2021, was it you who made the suggestion, oh, well, why don't I do this? Okay, you know, we're in the middle of the pandemic. I can't perform it live at Push. Why don't I shoot it in my living room?

Gabrielle Martin 10:37 Or was it somebody at Push who recommended that or how did that? That version of that. And how did it end up being in your living room? Yes.

Njo Kong Kie 10:47 In 2020 May, I don't know if you remember that the National Arts Center has put out an initiative to invite artists to live stream from home. So I was one of the projects that got the support from that platform.

Njo Kong Kie 11:04 And it was this song cycle that I performed. But I mean, it was obviously more, not obviously, but I mean, we stripped it down to just the core element, which is basically the song. So the format we use is like a steady cam on me sitting on the piano.

Njo Kong Kie 11:23 I talk to the audience about each piece of poetry and how they relate to the timeline in his life and what they talk about. And I'm not quite sure. I don't even remember whether we have subtitles or I just read the poetry.

Njo Kong Kie 11:39 I think I might have just read the poetry both in the Chinese and the English translations. And then let the audience experience the songs themselves like that. So it's a very basic presentation. That kind of got us, kind of like me and my collaborator, who is already at that time back to Macau because the team is made of people from Canada, Macau and Hong Kong.

Njo Kong Kie 12:04 So they were already back there. So I think I got a lot of help from my technical director who is in Hong Kong in terms of how to stream. And then how to set the angle and all those kind of things. So I think it was just a straightforward experience that way.

Njo Kong Kie 12:19 So to the very last minute, we were still thinking that I think I remember trying to because once the pandemic hit, there's a lot of travel restrictions. Up till November, I think we were still trying to see if we can get a special exemption for my collaborators to come into the country from Hong Kong and Macau.

Njo Kong Kie 12:43 And so there were some artists who were from Germany or something. I remember the conversation vaguely that they seemed to be able to come in, but then they couldn't. And so ultimately at the end, we abandoned that possibility.

Njo Kong Kie 12:59 And then I'm sure I think probably once Jason and whoever else might be at the office at that time decided, well, we just need to do a digital festival. So I think everything pivoted to that.

Gabrielle Martin 13:14 integrate the visual elements as well.

Njo Kong Kie 13:16 Exactly. So once I had that opportunity, then it begs the question as to, okay, do we do a live stream of the stage performance? Because that seems like an obvious... But then you get into the restrictions of not being able to have too many people in the room, even time, even performance or technician thing, there was still a limit.

Njo Kong Kie 13:40 I can't remember exactly.

Gabrielle Martin 13:43 It's a bit different than Vancouver as well.

Njo Kong Kie 13:45 Exactly. So here's a bit different. And then, you know, we still have the fine venue and it was very last minute. And obviously a lot of venue was empty at that time. But it's just the fact that if I couldn't get the technicians, the technical help, then we can't really do the stage performance.

Njo Kong Kie 14:02 Work. So even if we could... Yeah. So one of the venue I thought of was here at the theater center, but then even if we could get the... Could we get the technicians in and can we sort of like get all the elements to come together?

Njo Kong Kie 14:15 So that seemed to be a little bit too complicated also. So then ultimately, okay, what is the alternative venue? So then of course we remember the experience of doing the National Art Center live stream that was also in my place.

Njo Kong Kie 14:31 So we thought, well, why don't we just do it in my place? But since we have already done that version, we can't really just do the same version, right? So do we include the theatrical element?

Gabrielle Martin 14:44 Because I think people will hear, if you haven't seen it, then you'd imagine, okay, live streaming, or streaming this, rather, shooting it and then streaming it from, you know, a set that is somebody's living room might be very reductive or overly simple.

Gabrielle Martin 15:01 And it was simple, but it was still, you know, you had a lot of these elements of the work that made it.

Njo Kong Kie 15:07 more than yeah yeah yeah so I think that's a kudos to sort of like to my both the lighting design Naira and then the technical director uh who is also often uh co -produce my my my music theater works anyway uh so Eric and Gabriel yeah so so we ended up sort of like thinking okay if we're going to do this uh by then we have also seen a lot of digital works right yeah can learn from that we want to see if we can somehow use this medium to its own advantage then do things that we cannot do on stage yeah so that's always kind of at the back of our mind and leading guard leading the process so so we kind of like ultimately decide okay what are the elements visual elements of the show that we can incorporate we in the in the live show we have a square screen and because the poet one of the poems talked about you know living in in a small square room and so we thought okay we're going to just crop everything into a square right so that's how the visual is a square not a long rectangle screen right yeah so so we we did that and then we actually and we wanted to use a simple uh uh simple equipment that we can find so all the we had four cameras they're all iphones so that has some connections to the poetry because ultimately he he worked at a factory that produced iphones yes yet yet he could not own one right yeah but anyway so we thought okay that would be uh the equipment that we want to use so i call a lot of my neighbors that anybody have an extra old iphones that is not being used because i need for a week to test and everything so we ended up with four and then we once we decided where to put things and then basically we clear out my my my my i live kind of in the semi loft situation so there's really not the divisions of living in kitchen and everything i just clear up one everything of the main room let's say i move the position the piano at a certain place that we want and then you know put the uh the cameras wherever we could find and then you know and um and so that's kind of how we came to frame so all you see is just the piano very close up and myself so so there are several angles and then we were able to to bring back some of the uh movement elements not all of them because there's no space yeah yeah and then

Gabrielle Martin 17:35 But in some ways, you're talking about, but when you talk about the work and the content in the work and what the poetry talks about, solitude, there's a reference to living alone in a square box. This piece really landed itself very well to shooting it or realizing it in this way, and I'm curious then.

Njo Kong Kie 17:56 we kind of lucked out in that situation, yeah. But we also, I mean, one thing that I find the most, well, we were able to, as I was saying earlier, we wanted to see if we can introduce some technique that's only possible in the film, rather than on stage, because one of the poetry talked about, the ending poetry kind of talked about sort of like, I guess, disappearing from this world, so to speak.

Njo Kong Kie 18:26 So then we were able to, my technical director came up, the idea that we could actually, we filmed, we could make you disappear.

Gabrielle Martin 18:32 Yeah.

Njo Kong Kie 18:34 you know, and on a graduate and in a very subtle way then so I think those moments were came about only because of the film.

Gabrielle Martin 18:43 So then, because you did present it at Push 2022, in person, at the Waterfront, it was a very memorable experience and I'm so glad we got to have that version as well. But for you, was there something missing then?

Gabrielle Martin 18:57 How was the relationship going back to the stage in terms of how the medium communicated content of the work? How was that transition? Yeah, I think...

Njo Kong Kie 19:11 I've recently been sort of like working at the Stratford Festival for Salesmen in China. I don't know if you have heard about that. That work that's going to be premiering. And they're... What's your role?

Njo Kong Kie 19:23 No, but my role is I will happen to be a roommate of one of the actors. That's the extent of my role. But then, you know, and they were saying, oh yeah, we have seen the digital version. And then, so when the live show came around, they thought, well, we have already seen it.

Njo Kong Kie 19:41 So they didn't come. But other folks came, right? So the people that I talked to, you know, I always like doing a live show. You always, you know, sometimes you get to talk to the audience, where it's like with the digital.

Njo Kong Kie 19:54 I think we may have a window for people to engage afterwards a little bit. I remember talking to a volunteer, a long time volunteer of the festival, who is of Chinese heritage. She was very moved by the fact that there is a Chinese language work that she was able to catch in Canada.

Njo Kong Kie 20:19 But she said, well, yeah, it seems like I have been sort of like waiting for it. Yeah. But she has, you know, she's an avid supporter of, like, has been volunteering for the festival a long time. Elsie, was it Elsie maybe?

Njo Kong Kie 20:30 I can't remember her name exactly. But yeah, and then there are also some students from the mainland China who had not heard about this poet before. I mean, they have been living abroad for some time as well.

Njo Kong Kie 20:47 But anyway, so there are also those kind of connections. I don't know if they I don't know if they would have clued into that. There was a digital version or not. Maybe I think there is something live that still draws people in.

Njo Kong Kie 20:58 Absolutely. Yeah. And and and and and so sort of the life.

Gabrielle Martin 21:01 singing too, there's something about experiencing, I mean, I would say about experiencing any performing art live. I think I have to say that. But with singing there's something, I think, yeah, having that live, feeling that residence in the space just communicates, the emotional power is communicated that much more.

Njo Kong Kie 21:22 Yeah, yeah, no, and it's always kind of like, we always hum and hum about sort of technical setup and everything, but at the end of the day, when we travel, we put up a show at a different venue and then it's always, inevitably it's always quite a rewarding experience working with the local people, right?

Njo Kong Kie 21:42 They have that connection, whether they're technicians, whether they are administrators or whatever, just so there's that context as well, you know, and prior to that we had just, you know, performed in Kelowna, a few shows already, so we were quite ready to do the work, but there were still other technical challenges that had to be met, and that they see people coming together and solve the problem.

Njo Kong Kie 22:03 Yeah, yeah. It's always good.

Gabrielle Martin 22:04 But there's a special community that is built through realising creative projects. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So that project started in 2018 with the residency at Canadian Stage. And so since then, how would you say that your artistic practice has grown?

Njo Kong Kie 22:20 mm -hmm to till now yeah um so what are your I don't know I always feel that I haven't grown that much so it's hard for you to say yeah yeah I guess um yeah I'm still interested in making uh to finding like ways to present music in a theatrical settings or way so there are a few other things so I'm continue to make work that involves music and text and theater so I'm currently working on a piece for young audience with the liberties from from from this area Liza Balkan and that's it's for young audience so that's new to me okay so I'm sort of trying to develop that we are developing a an operatic web series so that's came out of the experience of doing all the digital work and there's a VR projects on an earlier show based on an earlier show and so I guess there's a bit more digital yeah seems to come into play yeah and and there's another song cycle that that we are developing or there we made a short film for so based on the story of uh uh who was a long time vancouver resident yeah

Gabrielle Martin 23:47 I was going to say, it seems like there's also a theme around being inspired by biographies.

Njo Kong Kie 23:52 Yeah, yeah, so the past yeah, I know I think by by by all accounts I lived you know a fairly privileged life here in you know in Canada and you know artists You know livelihood may be a little bit kind of haphazard to another people's mind But nonetheless we make work and we get to sort of like, you know, we're not going hungry.

Njo Kong Kie 24:13 We are not like You know suffering from war and all those You know traumatic experiences. So so by so it's kind of like I don't know I kind of feel for myself There's not much from my own experience I can draw from You know that that that sort of like yeah and then and so so I'm always kind of feel more inspired and empathize or you know with other other people's experience and sense so so so I guess that kind of

Gabrielle Martin 24:48 So you said you're working on one project now that is inspired by an artist who is based in Vancouver. Yeah.

Njo Kong Kie 24:54 I guess he wasn't an artist. He was a medical student in Shanghai, but then he met a German sexologist in the 1930s by the name of Magnus Hirschfeld. So they had a relationship. But the discovery of that relationship is quite interesting in itself because when he passed in Vancouver, he left a lot of suitcases.

Njo Kong Kie 25:23 This is documented by Story in the Extra Magazine in a number of years ago. But anyway, so his luggage was left outside in a garbage dump basically of his apartment complex. So then the superintendent found it and was curious to see what was inside.

Njo Kong Kie 25:44 So it was discovered from among that collection, there is a lot of old documents and also a death mask of somebody he did not know. So he, through some sort of like research and inquiry, he found out that it was the death mask of Magnus Hirschfeld, the scientist, yeah, himself.

Njo Kong Kie 26:06 So years later, somehow the post that he put online was discovered by the Institute in Germany that is dedicated to the preservation of the work of this scientist. So all of that just to say that then when my collaborator John Grayson was recommended by another filmmaker friend to read this article, he passed it on to me.

Njo Kong Kie 26:38 So that kind of triggered their conversations and about, is there something that we can highlight in this story of this extraordinary encounter in the 1930s, between a Chinese man and a German, and how their travel sort of like speaks about the early studies of sexuality or and then racism to sort of dynamic between an older man and then the sort of age difference between the two of them and all those kinds of things that are that jump on immediately as to sort of like it kind of like calls for an inquiry in terms of,

Njo Kong Kie 27:26 but yeah, so we're kind of still in the process. We have made a short film of it, which is called Death Mask. And so it is, I guess it's going around in the festival circuit at the moment and we're hoping for more screening and so on.

Njo Kong Kie 27:43 So I think it was shown here at the Real Asian and it was actually made it to the, I think it was, and yeah, come to think of it, premiere in Vancouver at the Vancouver Film Festival. Great, okay, so we'll keep our...

Gabrielle Martin 27:54 eyes open to more from you. But I do want to just comment on how you know you mentioned that you've been interested in other people's stories and I think a lot of artists you know create because there's a need to tell their own stories which is important and at the same time there is something really important to these stories that you're talking about are you know it's so important to honor the histories of these people whose experience has been erased or almost erased and I think that work of that like artistic work and yet there's the work of the historian as well yeah

Njo Kong Kie 28:29 I think I'm in obviously both a good starting point for sure for our own practice just as for myself I tend to veer that way maybe I'm a bit more an introvert so it's much easier to talk about general that rather than something that's specific to myself so I think that may be part of the reason too yeah

Gabrielle Martin 28:55 Well thank you. It's been really nice to speak to you. It was so nice. It's such a strong memory I have from the 2022 festival. Working with you, hosting you, it was so great to get to meet you in that context and it's been a while.

Gabrielle Martin 29:11 I think we saw each other a year and a half ago and New York was the last time and I think that was before the premiere of this film Death Mask. So it's just nice to hear about your work. Thank you for taking the time of chatting with me.

Njo Kong Kie 29:23 Yes, absolutely. Hope to be back.

Tricia Knowles 29:28 That was a special episode of Push Play in honor of our 20th Push International Performing Arts Festival, which will run January 23rd to February 9th, 2025 in Vancouver, British Columbia. To stay up to date on Push 20 and the 2025 Festival, visit pushfestival .ca and follow us on social media at Push Festival.

Tricia Knowles 29:49 And if you've enjoyed this episode, please spread the word and take a moment to leave a review. Push Play is produced by myself, Trisha Knowles, and Ben Charlton. A new episode of our 20th Festival series with Gabrielle Martin will be released every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts.