My Suzhou is a That's series when we ask a Suzhou-based somebody to tell us about their life.
Originally from Scotland, Dr Kim Hunter Gordon first came to Suzhou "for the feel of the old city," and to be able to commute to both Shanghai and Nanjing, but now mainly works in Suzhou. This month, he is launching the inaugural China Storytelling Festival.
What is your career background?
I studied literature and was, many years ago, a journalist in London, Shanghai and as The Scotsman’s Scotsman in Beijing, where I spent a lot of time at the opera. I became interested in returning to academia as a way of writing about the complexity of China, and I eventually turned my developing passion for performance into a PhD project at Royal Holloway, University of London.
During that time and afterwards, I spent several years as a visiting scholar at Nanjing University and the Shanghai Theatre Academy. I translate subtitles for the Jiangsu and Kunshan kunqu troupes, and currently work for Yu Theatre Company as a producer on a number of shows, including the kunqu version of Six Chapters of a Floating Life at the Canglang Pavilion Garden. Next year, I’ll take up a position as Assistant Professor of Chinese and Performance Studies at Duke Kunshan University.
What can people expect from China’s First Storytelling Festival?
It is the first event to bring together the creativity and vibrancy of the international storytelling scene with the inherited repertoire and techniques of China’s traditional storytelling arts.
Can you let us know about a few of the people who will be telling stories?
We have Nick Demeris coming from New York, Marit Ulvund from Norway and some of the most celebrated representatives from China’s storytelling traditions including Suzhou pingtan, Yangzhou pinghua and many others.
Who should we be really excited about?
We are particularly excited to be welcoming Unravel, the pop-up real-life storytelling company that has taken Shanghai by storm in recent years, to Suzhou for the first time. They will be hosting an exclusive workshop to help participants develop and tell their own stories, as well as a live show with storytellers from Shanghai and Suzhou in Locke Pub on the Sunday afternoon. There are limited spaces available for this workshop, so we encourage people to sign-up as early as possible.
You are a kunqu opera performer – what first got you into it?
For kunqu, it was the singing that was both understated yet so extraordinarily rich; the intricacy and detail in each syllable, arias that slow down time. But before I knew about all that, my interest in Chinese opera was probably more in its role-types, stylization and expressivity — that must have come from my first exposure which, like many, was through film, most obviously Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine.
Will you be doing an opera performance?
Ha! I wasn’t planning to, but there will be an open mic spot, and we are, of course, promoting the broadest possible interpretation of storytelling...
Will there be more storytelling events in future?
Yes. This is the first of an annual event. We are starting small and expecting to grow every year.
The first ever China Storytelling Festival runs December 7-9. Scan the QR code for more details:
Read more My Suzhou
Images via Dr. Kim Hunter Gordon
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