Fracture, the Sound is the second work in Chunyang Yao’s Sound Theatre series. The work began with a simple gesture: snapping a strip of bamboo.
I didn’t try to explain the work much before the performance last year. As the work itself suggests, it is direct and does not need to be explained in order to be experienced. But recently, while going through the documentation from its preparation and performance, I found myself wanting to share some of the fragments of thought that stayed with me.
My childhood memories of growing up in Lijiang only reach back as far as the age of five. But I remember my grandmother occasionally weaving bamboo baskets in the courtyard. Once again, a small gesture from everyday life became the starting point for a work.
When I snapped the bamboo, I suddenly remembered my grandmother sitting in the courtyard, with tiny bamboo splinters falling onto her ka daq, the traditional wrap-around apron. When she stood up, she would brush the splinters from it with her hands. I only remembered this gesture much later, while weaving bamboo myself during rehearsals.
Memory can be strange. Sometimes it feels like a layer of scarred-over skin: one small gesture breaks through the surface, and what has been sealed inside suddenly comes rushing out.
After the bamboo is snapped, there is a process of building, or weaving, much like in Here/There, the first work in the series. The structure is gradually assembled, only to be struck apart again at the end.
Perhaps this is also how memory works. We are constantly trying to rebuild what has already been lost, piecing fragments together into something that resembles a whole. But once that shape has been rebuilt, I find myself needing to take it apart with my own hands. Memory can never be preserved as something complete. It changes, it loses things, and sometimes, unexpectedly, it returns.
《此声撇断》是声音剧场系列的第二场演出，它的灵感来自撇断这个动作。
去年在演出之前没有解释过多但最近陆陆续续整理出去年准备过程中的想法碎片。就如作品介绍写的观赏它很直接，无需被解释，但演完后最近整理作品的影像资料时还是有了分享欲。
我在丽江小时候成长的记忆只到5岁，但记得我的奶奶在院子里不时会编竹筐。是的，这又是一次我用生活中一个细小动作和记忆片断为灵感的创作。当我在撇竹片的时候，突然想起来奶奶坐在院子里，竹条的细屑掉在围腰（ka daq）上，奶奶起身的时候就会拍打围腰把细屑掸开。这个掸围腰的动作是在我排练中编竹条的时候才想起来的。人的记忆呀，有时候像一层结了痂的壳，一个细小的动作把它敲开，里面封存的东西便一下子涌了出来。撇断后和《此地》一样有一个搭建（编织）的过程，最后又把它敲散。这就是记忆的状态，我们总是在试图把已经失去的东西重新搭起来，把零散的片段拼成一个完整的形状。但当它真的被搭起来之后，我又必须亲手把它拆掉。因为记忆从来不是一个可以被完整保存下来的东西。它会变形，会缺失，也会在某一个瞬间重新出现。
2026年出我跟视觉艺术家SUZE CHEN在香港又演了此声撇断，我们赋予了它新的一些视觉表现所以这个版本我们共同命名为《身在断响》。