Zheng Bo

If we really want to move into a future where humans are not the centre of the world, we need to treat other forms of life and materiality with full respect, biologically, culturally, intellectually and politically.
–Zheng Bo

舞草舞木 / Dance Grass Dance Tree is a performance by Zheng Bo that cultivates intimate human-plant relationships and kinship. In doing so, Zheng seeks to provide a positive counter to global crises of the economy, security, health and migration that have triggered cascading systemic shocks and generated a state of profound instability. As these challenges persist, the climate emergency continues to escalate unabated, compounding the vulnerabilities of societies already grappling with concurrent crises and rising political tensions.    

Commissioned by AGWA as part of the Simon Lee Foundation Institute of Contemporary Asian Art, this performance is choreographed by Zheng and Tyrone Earl Lraé Robinson who collaborated with two dancers and five Western Australian plants. Set atop a sparsely populated garden located inside a modern gallery space, the dance unfolds within a setting that isolates and elevates the presence of each plant. This garden-come-stage emphasises the preciousness of each plant and the precarity of their, and our shared existence.

Their work 舞草舞木 / Dance Grass Dance Tree draws on the notion of ‘making kin’ to consider how all of the Earth’s life forms are bound to fragile ecologies. To be kin with the surrounding plants is to have an enduring relatedness that is mutual, obligatory, pleasurable and accountable. The performance thereby poses a critical question: to whom is one truly responsible?

As the piece unfolds the beauty of sensual interactions between humans and plants is brought into focus, with lines and shapes that gesture across difference and energetically play with multispecies flourishing. In this way, Zheng creates a speculative alternative – a possibility of living in a subjective, symbiotic way with other life forms. Further to this, by excavating the roots of deeply entangled global structures this work considers how we might resist the extractive frameworks of our present moment, and come to view the ecological crisis as extending beyond human survival alone.

To interact intimately with the grass and the trees requires a reconfiguration of how we get to know life forms different from ours. For pleasure is both a noun and a verb that holds a moral and an ethical dimension. Pleasure is slowly cultivated over time, it is reciprocal and requires sensitivity to the needs of the other. Pleasure is what enables us all to form meaningful, lasting attachments to others. Connecting with plants in this way moves beyond language as a mode of recognising and understanding what we see. Rather than observing the plants Zheng invites you to sense and contemplate the way they live. Studying the outside world is also an opportunity to examine your own interior world.

By thinking with our entire bodies about the relations between humans and plants – contemplating how these bonds can be lasting, to a certain extent equal and ideally pleasurable – 舞草舞木 / Dance Grass Dance Tree suggests a reconfiguration of how we perceive and communicate with all of the Earth’s life forms. As the performance suggests, building multiple alliances between people and plants might recompose what it means to be human. Let’s find ways of becoming world-together.

We acknowledge the Whadjuk Noongar people as the Traditional Owners and custodians of the land on which AGWA stands. We offer our heartfelt gratitude to the Whadjuk community and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who continue to care for Country and share their knowledge. Their generosity and wisdom helps us to understand and navigate Country with respect and care.

Special thanks to Rickeeta Walley for sharing with Zheng Bo her ancestral ecological knowledge of Noongar boodja, the importance of plants for Noongar people, and the concept of kinship that is embedded across Indigenous cultures and knowledge systems.

We also extend our gratitude to Sue McDougall, Ian Kiely, and Kings Park and Botanic Garden for their botanical advice; Tyrone Earl Lrae Robinson and Shuling Wong from OFF-base Dance for their collaborative spirit, Talitha Maslin and Niamh O’Sullivan for their performances, and Lara Rose Bos for her botanical expertise and ongoing care of this work.

Commissioned by The Art Gallery of Western Australia as part of the Simon Lee Foundation Institute of Contemporary Asian Art, and presented in collaboration with OFF-base Dance.

Organised by Rachel Ciesla, Senior Curator, Simon Lee Foundation Institute of Cotemporary Asian Art

Plant dancers: Boyur/Woolly Bush/Adenanthos sericeus, Mungart/Jam Wattle/Acacia acuminata, Balga/Grass Tree/Xanthorrhoea preissii, Berrung/Grevillea ‘City of Lights’, Birdak/Bottlebrush/Callistemon salignus ‘Perth Pink’

Human dancers: Talitha Maslin, Niamh O’Sullivan

Choreography: Tyrone Earl Lraé Robinson, in collaboration with
Talitha Maslin and Niamh O’Sullivan

Ecosensibility: Zheng Bo

Music: Infraction Audio