Lucy Yim – Devastation Melody Performance (TBA Festival 2015)

Devastation Melody opens with a striking sequence. Dressed fairly androgynously in dark-colored linens, Lucy Yim recalls a Chinese railroad worker — an image made all the stronger as she slowly uses rope to pull nine cinderblocks towards her. After assembling them into a massive Pangea, she mounts their seemingly solid surface and begins to rock back and forth like an immigrant on the high seas. She begins to sing; and as the minor-key melody exudes from her lips, it is reminiscent of an old slave song, and one feels a sense of deep sadness watching Yim, who gradually discovers that the cinderblock foundation she has created is indeed quite weak, crumbling easily beneath her feet.

Lucy Yim PerformanceLucy Yim Performance

 

From here, Yim steps off the blocks, and her melody continues as she leads the audience from PNCA’s outer atrium into an inner performance space. Awkward and bumbling, she moves with sea legs that have just descended upon land. This is the main portion of movement in the entire piece — and Yim is dizzying, rhythmically doing about-faces as she trips backwards into the next room. Every step looks like the stumbling loss of control, though the movements are in fact calculated, poised, and precise.The Lego Batman Movie (2017)

Yim’s strength lies in her ability to introduce softness and juxtapose it with difficult feelings, which Devastation Melody does not shy away from. Halfway through the performance, she tells a story which echoes that of many ethnic children growing up in mixed-culture societies; she speaks of growing up in a white community and being told her home was “unsafe” after she began dating a Mexican immigrant. It was Yim’s first time experiencing that type of heartbreak and sadness — and to illustrate the point, she pairs the narrative with the physical act of drawing a silly face on a trash bag. Eventually, the trash bag is worn like a costume she tears off while repeating a mantra. In the deliberate act of removal, she seems to achieve a sense of catharsis, if only for a moment.

 

 

Devastation Melody is rooted in “heart on the sleeve” simplicity and mundane movements galore. In one segment, Yim dons an apron and opens the curtains of the performance space, like a Korean restaurant owner setting up a shop in the morning. She then floats across the room and places eggs in rice cookers, and eventually, the sound of their boiling becomes ambient noise — one of the few sonic components in the entire piece. As Yim moves stealthily and without much fanfare, observing her feels like observing someone in the privacy of her own room, or again, like observing a shopkeeper who is running through the motions, quite unconcerned with how they might look to others. This is vulnerability, in a public space.

Devastation Melody is much more of a performance piece than a movement piece, much to the confusion of audience members who may have been expecting something different. Yet what’s important here is the narrative — about the push and pull of the interior and the exterior worlds, as they relate to race and one’s intimate and societal connections to it. And there is much more to read into. The number three plays heavily into the work, through the appearance of eggs, pedestals, and rice cookers — all numbering three — and even rhythms that are syncopated on their third beats. These objects also mirror the structure of the piece. Devastation Melody is divided up into three main parts, broken up by the physical movement of Yim leading the audience in and out of rooms. And as hinted by the powerful introductory scene and by Yim’s reeling steps, Devastation Melody sways back and forth throughout its duration, finding even ground only to lose it again.

Is there an end to such meanderings, as a performer looking to find one’s place, or as a human being out in society? Perhaps not. And, depending on one’s perspective, in that uncertainty is where the devastation can sometimes lie.

 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-EfdNXsET8?rel=0&w=780&h=439]

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Written by
Vee Hua 華婷婷

Vee Hua 華婷婷 (they/them) is a writer, filmmaker, and organizer with semi-nomadic tendencies. Much of their work unifies their metaphysical interests with their belief that art can positively transform the self and society. They are the Editor-in-Chief of REDEFINE, Interim Managing Editor of South Seattle Emerald, and Co-Chair of the Seattle Arts Commission. They also previously served as the Executive Director of the interdisciplinary community hub, Northwest Film Forum, where they played a key role in making the space more welcoming and accessible for diverse audiences.

Vee has two narrative short films. Searching Skies (2017) touches on Syrian refugee resettlement in the United States; with it, they helped co-organize The Seventh Art Stand, a national film and civil rights discussion series against Islamophobia. Reckless Spirits (2022) is a metaphysical, multi-lingual POC buddy comedy for a bleak new era, in anticipation of a feature-length project.

Vee is passionate about cultural space, the environment, and finding ways to covertly and overtly disrupt oppressive structures. They also regularly share observational human stories through their storytelling newsletter, RAMBLIN’ WITH VEE!, and are pursuing a Master’s in Tribal Resource and Environmental Stewardship under the Native American Studies Department at the University of Minnesota.

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