[Lecture Performance] Between History and Myth: Sea Legends in Hong Kong's waters from mermaids to pirates

Shuttle bus info (For those who registered for this workshop)
We would like to inform you that the ICAS 13 Organising Committee has prepared a shuttle bus from the Campus B, Universitas Airlangga to the Workshop venue, Balai Pemuda Barat. (Please note: Only for those who registered for the workshop).

If you want to make use of the shuttle service, please ensure to be at UNAIR shuttle bus pick-up/drop-off point by 15:55. Please note that the bus will leave to the workshop venue on time. An ICAS 13 Badge is required to board the shuttle bus.

*Shuttle bus only brings participants to the workshop location, after the session, participant can explore Surabaya at their leisure. Find more information about Surabaya transportation here.

This session makes use of the method of artistic research, specifically deep mapping (Pearson and Shanks 2001; Wan 2019) to study the gendered bodies in sea legends in Hong Kong. It is part of the performance series "Beyond the Shore" (Itoshima International Art Festival, Japan, Oct 2023; Inter-Island Festival, Hong Kong Nov 2023), created by dance artist Alysa Leung, dramaturg Dr Evelyn Wan, and film director Anson Sham. Through this project, we map oceanic narratives of myth and history, to reinvestigate Hong Kong's coastal histories and role as a port city in the colonial era. This work takes on an ocean-centric/ archipelagic perspective that focuses on coastal exchanges of bodies, goods, and knowledges and the relations between islands and ports in the South China Sea. For the edition at ICAS Surabaya, two gendered bodies in particular are of interest: the little known Hong Kong mermaid myth of Lo Ting, and the pirate queen Zheng Yi-Sao active in the early 19th century on the Southern coast of China. Lo Ting has a fish head, and a human torso and body, and allegedly lives in the waters of Lantau Island in Hong Kong. Legend has it that Lo Ting was originally an army general who committed suicide, drowned after a failed rebellion against the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and eventually became a human-fish hybrid. While there have been historical records attesting to the existence of this hybrid, it consistently appeared in contemporary Hong Kong artistic and literary representations as a feminised body that is caught and kept as a sex slave. Zheng Yi-Sao was a real figure (though with limited historical records) who rose to power from her origins as a Tanka prostitute and eventually ruled the Southern coast as the leader of a 2000-ship-strong pirate confederation, a counterforce to both the Chinese Qing government at the time as well as colonial European trading ships. The research thinks through the role of such feminised bodies as representations of the oppressed water-dwelling ethnic minority (Tanka people), and as figurations of traumatic histories of war and conflict in Southern China. As such, we turn to forgotten legends in the margins of official historical records to recuperate ocean-centric historical narratives as new historiographies of the Southern China coast.

The session responds to the conference section theme artistically and academically through a dual-channel video installation and a live lecture performance. The video presents the artistic research process and selected excerpts of dance performances from the performance series, created by film director, Anson Sham. The lecture performance by Dr Evelyn Wan, with live dance performances by Alysa Leung, will be followed by a Q&A session at the end. The lecture performance contextualises the historical research and reflects on the relationship between gender, history, and myth in Hong Kong's waters, while sharing with the audience the narratives of these female sea legends.

Information about the first instalment of this series performed in Itoshima can be found here: https://www.alysaleungprojects.com/dawn-4-0-itoshima