Conceptually intriguing, this interdisciplinary production from Chinese art collective Not Set in practice resembles a theatre school thesis project. Company members Xi Chen, Jiuming Duran, and Jiajing Zhao move about the stage with serious, studious intent, deeply invested in philosophies and themes that don’t always find a clear means of communication to the audience. A poetic meditation upon the bodily and spiritual effects of the wind, the troupe unleashes fans, screens, sheets, and projections to illustrate connections between emotions, memories, and the natural world, the movement through the “interdimensional” element of air. A materiality of wind is all around us, both cause and result of motion.

There are some lovely visual moments, whether or not they tie directly into the central subject, including a hypnotic play of silhouettes along a curtain. This moment more explicitly illustrates the visual effects of light than the theoretical possibilities of wind. Perhaps, though, it is inferring the way in which the wind encounters us, as mere traces of figures as it goes about its business. The stand-out moment is the gentle manipulation of a plastic sheet on which is projected a film of a train station busy with travellers. The graceful shake finally illustrates some properties related to wind. The sound of the sheet moving up & down is the revelation of its voice. In this passage is found a clarity lacking in much of what else unfolds. Here we see, unequivocally, how the wind may experience and connect to us, the general memories it carries through its movements, a history of time.

There are too many longeurs overall, moments when the group sits idly on stage, misjudging how long to hold a sequence. A single lightbulb suspended from overhead, swinging gently between two fans over a carpet of books, is the most egregious example of a scene that carries on way past its desired meaning into tedium. They may intend for these instances to work meditatively, but the energy on stage is flat rather than charged. The group is to be commended for their ambition even if their method doesn’t always successfully convey the content. 

{🎟 AD – PR invite – Tickets were gifted in exchange for an honest review}

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