Yizhen asked me to go with her to an unusual performance of solo dance, titled “What a Girl Should Know”. It was noted on the website to contain nudity, and the audience’s discretion was advised. (It has been almost two years ago, and my memory is vague at best; by the way, I don’t want to be too specific either.)
Queueing in a hall narrow and unlit, the audience would wait for assistants to tell them when and how many persons could now enter the curtained room, where the show was to take place. On a table beside us was an old, worn book, “What a Girl Should Know”, which the show was named after. By the residual sunlight I could skim some pages, where it urged that young girls ought to obey some conservative values.
When I lifted the curtain, there was this female dancer, completely naked, holding a black marker in her mouth. She likely asked me whether I thought it was okay to kiss (or make love?) on a first date with someone. I said yes. She asked me to write “yes” anywhere on her body; I wrote it on her right thigh replete already with black words, mostly “yes” but some “no” too. She ushered me to sit in the very first row, making me edgy in silently anticipating the show. She did that to everyone; she would ask a question related to sex, then accompanied us one by one to our seats. The distribution of seats appeared to be grouped depending on one’s answer.
It was a small square theater with tiered seats. Those inside waited for quite long, some 15 minutes, for the routine until everybody was in; it was far from a full house, and out of boredom I turned back to count people, straining my eyes in the darkness. When I turned to the front again, the dancer was in front of me, which surprised me, and she asked me whether I wanted to change my seat. Taking some seconds to realize the meaning of her words, I said no.
On the stage were some cube-shaped boxes serving as chairs. The dancer stretched, jumped, rolled on the ground, displaced objects, and tried on clothes and shook them off. The dancer was having hair dyed yellow, a figure slim but sturdy, was medium-breasted, and shaved of pubic hair. The section was short, not virtuosic, and not resembling a well-rounded piece of dance. Overall, the matter-of-fact tone in her movement did not strike me as sexy, and rightly so.
In the next section, some of us (including me) were summoned to go up on the stage, men and women too. This, I wasn’t expected; wasn’t sure if it was warned of on the brochure either. The dancer started by asking who wanted to “date her”. I raised my hands along with other people, although, I thought, it was totally weird. She might have asked some heated questions, like whether one accepted only a virgin, whether it was okay to be bisexual, or whether one insisted to go dutch. She then asked whether “you are a feminist”. Curious of the consequence of dissent, I didn’t raise my hand this time. People looked at me, and the dancer gestured me to leave the stage. The awkward moment made me somewhat regret doing so, but being seated again I was far more comfortable.
Shortly, men and women left for their respective disagreeing answers, and only one young woman, dressed plainly and looking timid, remained on the stage now. The dancer tried to embrace the woman with a seducing smile; she caressed the woman erotically and lifted her top. The woman seemed to be confused too. The dancer either asked the woman whether she (the dancer) could kiss her, or only gestured to do so, and the woman refused. The show had thus ended abruptly.
Afterwards, Yizhen talked with the dancer for a while, with me beside them. The dancer explained her motivation, that dating was a process of gradually discovering the mutual differences; she was criticized on the internet, but she didn’t care. She then remarked that one guy looked impatient as if he wanted to change his seat. I said that was I, and I didn’t want to change my seat. (She must have failed to recognize me because it was too dark.)
❧ August 14, 2021