Vancouver choreographer Juolin Lee has spent several years thinking about how to adapt a Taiwanese folk tale, Mo Po Thang (孟婆湯), into a contemporary dance piece. According to this Buddhist and Taoist myth, souls of the dead follow the Yellow Spring Road into the underworld. When they reach the Bridge of Helplessness, they meet a woman, Mong Po (孟婆), also known as Meng Po. As a condition of passage, she requires each soul to drink soup.
“This soup erases every memory we have from our past life—our longing, our grief, our regrets, our relationships—everything!” the Taiwanese-born Lee tells Pancouver over Zoom.
Only then can these souls cross the Forgotten River and be liberated from past experiences. Now, they can reincarnate as innocent beings. However, souls that have performed diabolical deeds in their previous life encounter a different fate: eternal punishment in Hell.
“When I heard this story as a kid, it was always taught in a darker tone, like, ‘Make sure you be good; otherwise, you might come back as a frog.’ ” Lee says with a laugh.
At this year’s Dancing on the Edge festival, Lee will perform her original work, Soup of Forgetfulness, at 7 p.m. on June 18 and 19 at the Firehall Arts Centre. Through movement, lighting, and music, it depicts a soul in the underworld seeking access to past lives.
“In a particular section of the piece, I play with this idea of shape-shifting and a glimpse of embodiment of different characters from a different lifetime,” Lee reveals. “It represents this spirit that has been in the cycle for centuries and centuries.”
Lighting differentiates Soup characters
In one vignette, Lee transforms into a gang member, squatting and smoking in a back alley. In another episode, she’s a grandma at the river doing her laundry, and in yet another, she’s a newly engaged young woman doing embroidery at home. Lighting designer Chengyan Boon chose a specific illuminating colour or shade for each character.
“I feel like lighting is so important,” Lee acknowledges. “I’m really glad and grateful that I’m working with someone who is in this practice and has a lot of creative juice.”
On her website, Lee raises intriguing questions embedded in the work. For example, can ancient and impactful memories be stored in non-cognitive ways? Secondly, is a spirit closest to gaining access to ancient lived wisdom in the underground where lines blur between each life cycle? And can sensations serve as a portal to re-experience the distant past?
Soup of Forgetfulness includes music that’s familiar to Taiwanese movie buffs. Lee will perform to “A Pure Person (單純的人)”, a mesmerizing techno song by Taiwanese experimental composer Lim Giong (林強). He wrote it for the 2001 film Millennium Mambo (千禧曼波), which competed for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. According to Lee, this song resonated with her from the first day she heard it.
“It’s like a container to help hold me in a specific world and universe.”
Another song, “主意_你太白，去曬黑”, is by the indie trio Shy Hey. Lee says that in Chinese, the band’s name is “You’re too white, go get a tan.” She emphasizes that in Taiwan, the context for this phrase is vastly different because so many of these island nation’s residents want lighter skin.
“They’re just this really badass independent group, and they incorporate a lot of Asian instruments into their music-making,” she notes.
Lee hones piece through residencies
Soup of Forgetfulness is part of the Edge 5 double bill. Lee’s 30-minute piece will follow choreographer and performer Jenn Edwards’s The Centre of Time, which is inspired by Alan Lightman’s 1992 novel Einstein’s Dreams.
In creating Soup of Forgetfulness, Lee’s mentor has been Natalie TY Gan, a co-founder of Hong Kong Exile. They began pulling it together during a three-week paid residency at Morrow, which is operated by Odd Meridian Arts. That culminated in a 34-minute studio showing on January 5, 2024. Last October, Lee refined the work with Gan’s help in a weeklong, transformative Dance West Network residency on Salt Spring Island. It concluded with a 15-minute performance at Antler Ridge Dance Studio. Then in November, Lee presented another 15-minute version at Boombox as part of the Dance in Vancouver Festival.
“Soup of Forgetfulness is an invitation to imagine and re-imagine goodbyes,” Lee states on her website. “It attempts to expand our perception of what lays beyond the physical world.”
Dancing on the Edge will present Juolin Lee’s Soup of Forgetfulness at part of Edge 5. It begins at 7 p.m. on June 18 and 19 at the Firehall Arts Centre. For tickets and more information, visit the Firehall Arts Centre website. Dancing on the Edge runs from June 12 to 22. To learn more about Juolin Lee, visit her website or read this 2023 article in Pancouver.
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