So why Parkour and Clowning? It just so happens to be what we respectively do as artists - Louiseanne does Parkour in their movement world, and Isabella does Clowning in her theatre background. It ultimately enables us to be fully present with ourselves and how we interact with the world. Since our interactions look so different, we got curious to explore each other’s craft and see what sticks.
Our friendship actually dates back to Uni days: we both did our undergrad at the University of Manchester, with Louiseanne studying Music and Isabella studying Drama – but we met during freshers’ week and the rest is a party.
Parkour (originally called l’art du deplacement) began in the streets of France by a group of friends called the Yamakasi, meaning ‘strong body, spirit, or person’ in Lingala language. One of the main values is to be strong to be useful, or être fort pour être utile in french.
Clowning stems from the circus world, with a dream to bring laughter to an audience. There is a strong connection with the inner child. The clown is an idiot who doesn’t understand their own humour - and the clown exists with a need for the audience’s love.
Since graduating, we have been on our individual journeys honing in on our crafts and developed new strands. Louiseanne trained further in Laban (MA Choreography), joined a dance crew in LA (Show Off Dolls), and got into l’Art du Deplacement (Esprit Concrete and the Yamakasi themselves). Isabella worked with various theatre companies in Hong Kong before further training in France with the master of clown, Philippe Gaulier, and wrote her debut play (finalist Women’s Prize for Playwriting). Is destiny the right word? There’s definitely some cosmic magic that brought us back together. We kept in touch through the years and were curious about each other’s craft. Recently we noticed a few callouts for scratch work in Manchester (Creative Interventions HOME and The Lowry Scratch Nights x New Earth Academy+), so we took the chance to enter as an emerging duo. From these scratches, Ancestral Time Travel Agency (ATTA) came to us – it is still a work-in-progress, but we are both grateful for these opportunities because we get to work as friends who share a history and have immense trust in.
Our shared history isn’t only in friendship, but the same roots: Hong Kong. When we started brainstorming for ATTA, we found a lot of common ground in how we’ve remembered our home city and what family meant to us from childhood era till now. We both grew up in Hong Kong, a former British colony with a strong sense of Western influence, often known as ‘the pearl of the orient’. In the eyes of the West, Hong Kong gives an impression of femininity and is subjectively exotic – so we dived into the rabbit hole of the history of Chinese women, and found more insight that linked us to our respective ancestry, one of which being the brutal custom of footbinding.
Did it surprise us when we found out that one of our great-grandmothers bound her feet? Yes and no (apparently it was trendy at the time like tattoos, I’d imagine women back in Qing Dynasty would be shocked to learn about high heels nowadays – or crocs with charms!) – but from this point on, it became clear to us that ATTA has to respond to footbinding.
We both grew up within a structure that confined us, whether it is the parents’ high hopes for our future, or a society that promotes the pairing of a man and a woman. In a way, the scaffolding frame in our set is what confines and restricts us, and through Parkour and Clowning, we’d physically and mentally (through the power of laughter) break free.
This explains why we both feel we could tap into play, curiosity, risk, growth, escapism, freedom all at once. With Parkour and Clowning, we can creatively respond to things we cannot control - audience’s reactions, UK weather, security guards etc. because we have the beauty of choice. We think the ‘flop’ in Clowning and ‘bailing’ in Parkour are such vulnerable places that push you to get stronger, think out of the box and try something new - to fall or fly. We also wish to see each other achieve new heights so in true Parkour spirit, we look out for each other’s safety and boundaries during our creative process. When one of us drifts, it really shows and that’s when the clown takes over, throws in a few lame jokes to stretch our imagination, regain momentum and find pleasure in collaboration.
We really enjoy fusing our disciplines and perspectives together, and we keep having eureka moments in rehearsals! Our take on what Parkour and Clowning means to us and our work amplifies our artistic voice when commenting on themes in ATTA that we feel compelled to talk about. Representing bilingual culture, generations of migrants, highlighting the lasting impact of footbinding on what it means to be a ‘Chinese woman’, with links to colonialism and societal conformation - because if we don’t talk about it, who will? We hope our show can be seen as an artistic archive, an educational note, so our story and our ancestry is not forgotten. So in our work-in-progress madness, we invite you to time travel with us!
Ancestral Time Travel Agency (work-in-progress)
Sat 23 - Sun 24 Nov 2024 at 9pm and 8:45pm
Tickets £8
