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Ambassadors for Inclusive Arts

Local theatre group Comuna de Pedra is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and the group’s leaders Jenny Mok and Jojo Lam reflect on the development and achievements of this small but courageous organisation
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In the mid 1990’s, a group of young local artists were starting to return to Macau after having all separately spent time abroad studying in their respective artistic fields. Upon coming home, they found a city whose art scene was far less vibrant and creative to what they had been exposed to overseas.  Conservative, traditional and seemingly out of touch with the social changes that were taking place, especially in the lead up to the Handover in 1999, some of these artists decided that they needed a platform from which to create and present a new generation of talent.  And thus Comuna de Pedra (Stone Commune) was born.

“We are a non-profit organisation founded in 1996 by brother and sister Frank and J Lei, and also a collective group of artists of different disciplines,” explains Jenny Mok, who has been in charge of the association since 2012. “Comuna de Pedra was not originally intended to be just performing arts – there were visual artists, filmmakers, artists on the sidelines of the mainstream art industry at the time, that’s why they didn’t call themselves a performing arts troupe when it was established. It was just an arts association, more like an art collective in the early stages.”

“It was before the Handover, and they were artists who had all studied abroad and then come back to Macau, and found that the art scene was not really reflecting much of society’s changes or responding to it, so they found it quite unsatisfying that art was not functioning as something that was responsive to what was happening.”

In an interview with CLOSER in 2019, founding member J Lei explained the inspiration for the name of group: “Stones are very ordinary things, they are everywhere. But in fact, when you look carefully, every stone is different. They do not consciously exist in the universe, but they have been here since forever and will always be here.”

While many in the local community may not be familiar with the work of Comuna de Pedra, its impact has been long lasting.  It could even be argued that this small group with very humble beginnings on Tomas Vieira Street, just behind Kiang Wu Hospital, was the real origin of the thriving local contemporary art scene of painters, cinematographers, designers, performers and musicians that exists today. Indeed, many of the early members of Comuna de Pedra are artists who have since gone on to become influential figures here on the local arts scene: Frank Lei and his sister J both studied in France and returned to work in photography and contemporary dance respectively; James Chu worked at the Macau Art Museum and went on to found the Macau Design Centre and Art For All Society; and Kent Yeung became the vice director of the Cultural Bureau.

Current president and artistic director Jenny Mok, and vice-president Jojo Lam, met when they started joining the group’s activities in 2002.

“The original members were pioneers of site-specific theatre in Macau. Jojo and I were both still high school students when we joined. I volunteered just to help out with a production, I was happy just to iron clothes or something, and that’s how I became involved,” recalls Jenny.

Early Days

Perhaps influenced by their time studying in Europe, the early members of Comuna de Pedra displayed a somewhat confrontational approach to art, keen to use their work to comment on societal issues of the time, and not afraid to be controversial.

One of their first major projects was the Inside Annual Exhibition, held soon after the more mainstream Second Macau Art Biennale organised by the Cultural Affairs Bureau.  In a deliberate attempt to establish themselves as something new and different on the local art scene, all the artworks were placed on the floor of the exhibition venue, rather than hung on the walls.  The walls instead were covered with black plastic garbage bags and painted with graffiti.

Later, in 1998, Comuna de Pedra organised the First Cultural Policy Seminar, and extended an invitation to some government representatives in an attempt to establish a dialogue around the issues of cultural policy, art education and cultural and art critics. In addition to local artists, many art educators and art critics from Hong Kong were also invited to the seminar.

By 2001, many of the group’s members began using the Old Ladies House Art Space in the St. Lazarus district. At the time it was vacant and run down, but it was the perfect venue for the contemporary artists to continue their creative activities, and it encouraged more cooperative ventures between the government bureaus and the private art sector.  

“It was really abandoned then, not like it is now.  But Frank and J managed to take over that space and establish it as an art space,” notes Jenny. “Later we moved to Ox Warehouse in 2003 and visual arts became more of a focus.”
In 2015, Comuna de Pedra moved to their current home in Tak Chun Macau Art Garden.

A New Focus

In 2007, five years before taking over the reins of the group, and only five years after originally joining in 2002, Jenny directed her first physical theatre performance for Comuna de Pedra, A Moment of Sunshine in Pinkish Orange, in which Jojo also performed.  

“J Lei had a very strong background in dance theatre, but we joined Comuna de Pedra as teenagers and didn’t know how to dance at all, so our training and background is a bit different. We do more physical theatre, whereas they did more dance theatre,” notes Jojo.

“I didn’t have any art related training before I got to Comuna de Pedra. I kind of got my training about performance in the group, just learning by doing,” adds Jenny. “But it got hold of me quite hard and I realised that it was something that I was really interested in and really passionate about.”

Since taking on their leadership roles in the group however, both Jenny and Jojo have further developed their skills and training in related fields.  Adding to her bachelor’s degree in English Literature, Jenny spent two years in Brussels studying at the International School of Theatre LASSAAD.  After graduating from Psychology, Jojo began working as a psychotherapist, and then went on to do her Master’s degree in Drama Therapy in Canada.

“Jojo is actually the first drama therapist in Macau,” notes Jenny.

“It’s also kind of psychotherapy, but people use theater as a technique,” explains Jojo.  “We can use it with people who have mood disorders or mental illness, or sometimes we use it for some social skills training as well.
“I think it’s effective because we have a lot of defense mechanisms, but drama therapy and a lot of art forms can knock these down, and then we can enter a deeper level of the psyche,” Jojo adds. “When we use just language or when you ask a deeper question, people can just get defensive and feel it is too much. But if we use story, metaphor, or drawing, it’s easier to enter the deeper psyche. I believe the power of art can help us to explore our deepest sense of self.”

And this is where the direction of Comuna de Pedra began to change under the new vision of Jenny and Jojo.  While the group had already been running educational programs for young people for over a decade, they began to realise the opportunities of working with people with special needs, and even the elderly.

“I started working with these communities in around 2009, and I became very involved and interested personally. And when Jojo came back with her psychotherapist and drama therapist qualifications, I thought, ‘why are we not doing something together with Comuna de Pedra?’” notes Jenny.

Today, Jenny and Jojo have developed programs and workshops for children, the elderly and those with special needs, with a strong focus on education.

“We go to kindergartens and primary schools, not just people with special needs, and we do storytelling workshops, sometimes with parents as well,” says Jojo. “We also recently worked with Oxfam to do educational workshops about society and the environment. So actually, we do a lot of workshops in different settings, even with elderly associations, as well as performances.”

“We’re interested in working with different people, different abilities and different backgrounds. And the power of art is that it allows for personal growth,” adds Jenny.  “We are really inspired by the different qualities of the individuals. When we do games and training, we want them to open up more, and in the process we also get inspired and then we are also opened up by them.”

“Arts in Macau is quite marginalized anyway, but we believe it’s powerful. There is something interesting about art in that it can give people the authority to express their own voice and provide a platform to be heard,” Jenny continues. “We realized that with the special needs community, there is not really much of a platform for them to express their voices and they don’t have any ownership of the arts. They may be encouraged to do performances in some galas, like a three or four-minute dance or song, which can be valuable, but they don’t own the art. Art is about being a narrative for somebody to express themselves, but we don’t see there’s a space for that, especially for the mentally and physically challenged community.”

Inclusive Arts

Despite their interest in involving people with differing abilities in performance art and their work with various communities over the years, Jenny and Jojo had limited experience in putting on an actual show of this nature to the public. In 2016 however, Jenny attended a production presented by Zurich-based group Theatre HORA and French artist Jerome Bel at the Macao Arts Festival. Theatre HORA is a professional theatre in Switzerland whose performers have all been certified as having a learning disability.  Impressed by the inclusive nature of the show, Jenny reached out to them to see how they could collaborate in the future.

In 2019, they did just that, creating the stage play The Never-ending Task in collaboration with Swiss director Michael Elber and German musician Chris Weinheimer, bringing the cast and crew to Macau for the production.
“Learning from experts like that really fascinates me,” says Jenny.

The success of this show led to the development of Comuna de Pedra’s inaugural Todos Fest! in January 2020, presented within the program of the annual Macao Fringe Festival.  ‘Todos’ means 'everyone’, in Portuguese and the inaugural Todos Fest! featured the same cast of eight actors from The Never-Ending Task and presented live performances including rap, deejaying, live readings, and improvisational skits at the Old Court Building.
“Todos is actually the first inclusive arts festival in Macau,” observes Jenny. “We put together three performances and three workshops, and also one seminar for the first edition. We featured different people from the community of different abilities like mentally or physically challenged and also elderly people.”

Treetalk featured a group of women aged 65 and upwards performing choreography co-created by renowned Hong Kong-based Malaysian choreographer Yonglock Ong, and local dance artists Candy Kuok and Jacqueline Vong.  The closing show of the festival featured a group of 30 volunteers with disabilities performing a group dance at the Macao Cultural Centre Art Plaza, choreographed by Hong Kong artist Yuenjie Maru, who employs the Dance Ability method, an inclusive teaching style for all levels, ages and abilities.

“We are very interested in having a platform for people with different abilities via arts so they can have this expression and get in touch with more people,” notes Jojo. “Fringe is a very good platform because it’s a big official festival so we can reach out to more people and they can know and appreciate these kinds of performances.”

Never-ending Tasks

As well as being involved in Fringe Festival, in May this year Comuna de Pedra also performed a show at the Macao Arts Festival, bringing together special-needs actors from The Never-ending Task and Todos Fest!, as well as Theatre HORA’s directors and stage performers. The production, entitled The Never-ending Task of Lust for Failure, extended the ideas and methods used in The Never-ending Task while integrating creative input from a separate show, The Pleasure of Failure, originally performed by Theater HORA back in Europe.  An improvisational work, it attempted to allow theatre to grow out of the playful pleasure of failure, out of pauses, insecurities and dead ends.  Mok notes that the performance was “absurd and hilarious” with a heavy dose of spontaneity.

“This show was experimental with lots of improvising. I wanted to question the idea of a ‘failed’ performance. Is it a failure to not give a perfectly-rehearsed performance? If so, I prefer failure.”

However, unlike their previous collaboration, due to the pandemic, the Swiss cast members were unable to travel and meet in person to produce the show, and it necessitated moving rehearsals online. This adaptation posed new challenges to Comuna de Pedra, including equipping the theatre with wireless Internet and teaching the actors to use electronic devices, like tablets, in order to participate. The company even purchased some iPads, so actors could interact with their European peers for rehearsals and online productions.

“We were so thrilled and excited to be able to present our work with these actors. It was intercontinental collaboration with our friends from Switzerland and also Germany. It was a very exciting process and a hybrid of two different forms because they were performing via Zoom from Europe and our actors were on stage. Our actors had no props, but each of them had an iPad so they could interact with their counterparts in Europe.”

Mok says the experience was humbling, but definitely worth the extra effort. “I’ve worked with Michael [Elber] and Chris [Weinheimer] before, and already knew they are brilliant and experienced. I learned so much working alongside them for this, even though it was limited to online.”

 

A Learning Journey

Jenny and Jojo soon came to realise that creating performance art with special needs actors required a very different approach.

“It takes a lot more time and you have to acquire a different pace,” says Jenny.  “The actors are unpredictable. They are not like other actors who are professionally trained and just do what you tell them to. They are bluntly honest, and sometimes they go against you. There’s almost a sense that you’re in control but then you’re not in control. I think that as an artist that’s really fascinating, and it’s also the art of not controlling it and just letting it happen. You just have to let go of your anticipation of what it’s supposed to be.”

To allow the actors the freedom to express themselves within the framework of a particular theme or topic, the directors employ the concept of structured improvisation.

“You give them hints and then it’s important that they make their own choices. When you see actors with different abilities making choices onstage, it’s quite fascinating,” Jenny explains. “Whenever they do something, it’s a choice, and choices are interesting.  My work is about acknowledging the choices, and putting it all together, and letting it enhance the performance.”

But as a director, allowing the performance to take on a life of its own is not always easy.

“At the beginning of the work, I felt like I had to be in control and I would get frustrated,” Jenny admits. “But it really inspired me because at some point I thought to myself: Is it really important that I have to be so much in control? Is it really good for the art itself? Am I not open enough to accept the choices made? Is it really going to be better if they do it the way that I want to do it?

“We are always so amazed that a lot of times the so-called disability is not because of a real disability, but just due to a lack of confidence or a lack of opportunity because they are always being told that they cannot do things. But actually, when you feel like you have ownership of the art, you can relax, make choices and do it.”

 

Responding to Society

While working with special needs actors is a major focus for Comuna de Pedra, the group also works with regular artists to produce a variety of performances. One of the group’s ongoing projects is the De-corps-struction series, which brings together creatives from various eras and with different creative practices such as theatre, film, and set and lighting design. Each artist is invited to interpret a particular literary canon through their creative practice and consider the idea of ‘well-being’ through visual languages, ultimately resulting in five compelling short films.

“In this series, we invite artists to interpret or to present original works about a theme. We like trying to respond to what’s happening in society at the moment.  Sometimes it feels like we’re not in control anymore,” say Jenny.
An early production in this series was presented in 2019.  The Moment was inspired by George Orwell’s famous dystopian novel 1984 and On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder.

Another production in this series screened in early November this year, organised by Comuna de Pedra and funded by the Cultural Institute.  Curated by J Lei and Jenny Mok, The New World of Amusement and Death presented responses to the dystopian classic Brave New World.

The videos looked at today’s humanistic landscape and explored issues such as consumerism, individuality, and collective memory: Germless Civilization by Jenny Mok; LIVE by Peeko Wong; But we’ve got vacuum cleaners here by Nip Man Teng; and There Ain’t No Such Thing as A Free Lunch by J Lei; and Simulate and Record by Leong Son U.

“When Jojo and I took over we didn’t really have a clear vision for the group, but I think we’ve been starting to grow some sort of vision over these years. Somehow, maybe unconsciously, we are still respecting the ideas of the founding members who had the goal of responding to what was happening in society with art,” Jenny observes. “I think today we still have a lot of focus on responding to what’s happening in society, to what is unjust.  If art is addressing something then there’s value. If art is not addressing or tackling people’s needs anymore, then it is going to die.”

Vision for Growth

In its 25-year history, Comuna de Pedra has been an influential platform for some of Macau’s most recognised contemporary artists and it continues to take on ambitious challenges in the arts.  Looking to the future, Jenny and Jojo both hope to gain more exposure for their performances and actors.

“I would like more people to get to know our work, it’s quite marginalized, and I think there are still people that we can reach,” says Jenny. “Every time we do a show, we have an audience of around 300 to 400 and it hasn’t grown that much actually. It’s important to get people’s attention because we have a message we want to communicate.”  

“I hope we can tour our shows more in the future,” adds Jojo. “We have a limited audience in Macau, so it’s good to bring it to other places to let more people know about the work.”

Both recognise the challenges that lie ahead, but are enjoying the learning experience that their artistic journey is taking them on.

“I am so fascinated as a director. I’m still learning and walking with the actors. I’m learning how to polish the art, how to open up the art and work on different possibilities. It makes me excited, because it seems like there’s always new stuff to explore,” says Jenny.

“We just believe that it’s important to give space for art for different kinds of people. If you give people enough space and time, their voice is going to be heard, and I think it’s important that everybody has a place where they can be heard. Art is an ambassador for an inclusive society.”

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