IX_01

Alpha and Omega

IX

亞福説:「我走後,我的所有衣物就任由你處置,除了 Issey Miyake(三宅一生)的,不可以送,不可以剪,也不可以燒。」

他喜愛Issey Miyake的設計很有建築感,常覺得自己的身體不夠美,於是就買它的結構吧!

三宅一生在《三宅一生:爲設計而生》(Issey Miyake: Design for Feel)的紀錄片中解説:「布料和身體之間的空間創造了服裝。」

Ah-hock said, “When I’m gone, you may do with all my clothes and things as you please, anything save the Issey Miyake ones. Those you may not give away, cut, or burn down.”

He loved Issey Miyake’s designs for their architectural quality. He never found his own body beautiful enough, so he sought to buy structure. In the documentary Issey Miyake: Design for Feel, Issey Miyake explained, “The space between the cloth and the body creates clothes.”

IX_02

「IX,意思是開始與結束, 這名字是亞福為我改的,Alpha and Omega to Hock,他說我是他的開始和結束。」IX覺得穿上一件衣服就像一段愛情關係,想像嬰兒本來一絲不掛,從抗拒到適應束縛,最後愛上被包裹著的感覺⋯⋯現在回望21年的戀愛和雙人舞的旅程,衣服原來是一個很重要的元素,見證著二人的創作進化。

「我從不買衫,所以衫都是亞福買的,因為他很愛買衫而我就比較享受被裝扮;作為舞者,我們都得貪靚,更愛衣服和身體中的有限空間所創造出來的舞動形式。」

「如果你想要自由,你就必須先被框住。當你被框住,就在框子裡發揮創意,這就是自由。」這是IX對於自由的哲理。

IX_03

“IX means beginning and end. It is the name Ah-hock gave me, the Alpha and Omega to Hock. He said I was his beginning and his end.” IX felt that wearing clothes is like being in a love relationship. Think how a baby is bare at first, he resists constraints, gets used to them, and finally falls in love with the feeling of being wrapped around… Looking back now on their love and duo dance journey of 21 years, clothes turned out to be a very important element, bearing witness to the evolution of the two’s creative endeavours.

“I never buy clothes, so all the clothes were Ah-hock’s purchases, for he loved buying clothes, while I enjoyed being styled more; As dancers, we love to look good, and we love dance forms that were created out of the limited space between clothes and bodies even more”

“If you want the freedom, you have to be framed. You’re framed, it’s how free you work within the frame creatively, that is freedom.” Such is IX’s philosophy of freedom.

「我們都很喜歡長衫,特別著迷《花樣年華》裡身體和貼服的長衫之間,那極微的行動空間所塑造出的身體語言所引發的挑逗和張力。」

因花了很多錢買衫,他們開始嘗試找師傅做衫,後來發現要師傅做出心目中的舞衣效果很不容易,於是IX就開始自己動手鑽研,大約是從2004年起吧,亞福也會買些高級的設計師作品給IX研究做功課,越做越細緻,慢慢地建立起替人做衫的興趣。

「我可以把我腦裡所想的創造出來,可以邊做邊想動作怎樣融入空間。」IX説。

“We both love cheongsam, and are especially obsessed with how in In the Mood for Love, that extremely tight moving space between the body and the close-fitting cheongsam shapes the body language, and the tease and tension that it evokes.”

Having spent too much on clothes, they tried to find tailors to make clothes, but realised later that it is not easy at all for the tailors to make dance costumes to the effect that they have in mind. Thus, IX began working on the clothes himself, starting from around 2004. Ah-hock would also buy high quality designer clothes for IX to study and work on. As his work became more and more sophisticated, his interest in making clothes for others slowly developed.

“I can create what I have in mind, I can create as I imagine how a movement assimilates into a space,” said IX.

IX_08

「我們一早已討論好,大家走後,都不要搞喪禮,要開開心心的搞一場派對,所以我就回到我們相遇的地方 —— 香港,在他生日前3天,搞了場派對,邀請了好友們來用音樂和舞蹈為他的一生來個致敬。」

他是在11時11分離開,而11月11日也是我們的紀念日,所以我就為他編排了《11 Tribute to Loving》邀請了7位藝術家朋友輪流從我身上除出並穿上分別加上7個脈輪圖案的白恤衫,喻意一一和我交流和替我驅散悲傷。」

當中有一位藝術家的媽媽剛巧在數天前去世,在舞蹈中她以抹地的動作來回憶從前做過家傭的媽媽,在她已名成利就時也堅持清潔的畫面,或許在場的來賓未必知道,但這些互動就像交談了一場心事。

“We have agreed quite early on that when we pass away, we will not have funerals. We will organise a happy, jolly party. So I went back to where we met – Hong Kong. 3 days before his birthday, I held a party and invited some good friends over to pay tribute to his life through music and dance.”

“He passed away at eleven past eleven, and November 11 is also our anniversary day, so I choreographed 11 Tribute to Loving for him. I invited 7 artist friends to remove from me and put on themselves white shirts with stitched images of the 7 chakras one by one, to symbolise their exchange with me one after another and the purging of grief.”

The mother of one of the artists just so happened to have passed away a few days prior. During the dance, she took to the movement of wiping the floor to reminisce about her mother, who once worked as a maid, and the imagery of her insisting on doing the cleaning herself even after attaining wealth and status later. Guests in attendance might not have understood, but these interactions were like a heartfelt conversation.

IX計劃用七七四十九個月,不斷演繹這段舞蹈作為招魂的儀式,讓亞福住進他的身體裡,其中一次在威尼斯的個人演出,IX就旋轉式地穿上兩件以鈕扣鈕相連的恤衫 —— 是他和亞福的,抱著一個紙箱,從箱內拿出其餘5件白恤衫,都分別是IX親手以毛線旋轉式手縫上「一一」行針步的1:1方形,7種線色象徵著7個層次的情緒,把它們拿出來穿上,感受悲傷與快樂,擁抱自己,最後再脱下來,把負面的情緒放回箱子封存。

IX planned to perform this dance repeatedly over forty nine months, as a soul summoning ritual to let Ah-hock take residence in his body. In one solo performance in Venice, IX, while spinning, put on two shirts buttoned up together – the shirts belong to him and Ah-hock. He held a paper box and took out the other 5 white shirts from the box, all hand-sewn with 1:1 squares in running stitch by IX himself, with 7 colours of threads symbolising 7 layers of emotions. He took them out, put them on, took in the grief and joy, embraced himself, and at last, took them off, as he put the negative emotions back into the box to be sealed.

IX_12

曾翠珊導演,因當初的委托項目和亞福合作,從2017年他還未生病,到IX因愛滋病被新加坡政府逐出境外,回到家鄉馬來西亞,再到2018年發現亞福生病,2019年離世,最後以《一一》(Ward 11)記錄他們的愛情故事,加上以《無舞之間》(Chroma 11)的VR 創作,從沉浸式敘事角度,觀眾能夠像置身於IX和亞福的回憶影像中,立體化的影像更會穿過觀眾的身軀的感覺,把二人被禁止和無條件的愛,在夢中或在現實,永遠在一起也永遠分離。

導演説:「生命一直在變,我就在記錄生命。我覺得衣服或許是代表回憶,很有儀式感。」

Director Tsang Tsui-shan’s collaboration with Ah-hock started from a commissioned project at first, from 2017 before he fell sick, to IX’s deportation by the Singapore government for AIDS, returning to his homeland Malaysia, Ah-hock’s diagnosis in 2018, his passing away in 2019, and lastly, Ward 11, which documented their love story, and the addition of the VR creation Chroma 11, which places viewers within the moving images of IX and Ah-hock’s memories through its immersive narrative. The tangible images may even feel as though they pass through the viewers’ bodies, keeping the two’s forbidden and unconditional love, in dreams as in reality, always together yet forever apart.

The director said, “Life is changing constantly as I document it. I think clothes could perhaps represent memories, they are very ceremonial.”

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