A lecture performance with Ming Poon and Darunee Terdtoontaveedej

霸王别姬 Farewell my Concubine

Chen Kaige, China/Hong Kong 1993 (excerpts)

Farewell My Concubine can be considered one of the most iconic queer films in Asian cinematic history for its implications of homosexuality and the gender-fluid performance by Lesley Cheung. However, its portrayal of queer and female trauma remains problematic for many in queer Asian communities where positive representations are still lacking. In this intervention, we reimagine an alternative narrative through a queer feminist lens, unpacking the patriarchy embedded within the film and interrogating how it represents queer and female subjects.

Supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

Ming Poon is a Berlin-based choreographer and dancer. His focus in choreography lies not only in the organisation of bodies in time and space, but also in how it interrogates their social and political relationality. In particular, he works with the potential within the body of the weak/peripheral to resist and disrupt hegemonic structures, using choreographic strategies that involve decolonisation, vulnerability, care, queerness and failure.

Darunee Terdtoontaveedej is a curator and researcher based in Rotterdam. Trained as an architect and designer, Terdtoontaveedej specialises in cross-disciplinary collaboration through the designer’s lens. She has worked as a curator at CinemAsia Film Festival and the 49th edition of International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).

Queer Intervention: Farewell My Concubine