# Saturday Four-Hour Duel Club Canonical: https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/duel-club Saturday Four-Hour Duel Club, 2021–2023. Interactive theatre, a voting game and a transcript archive. He Fa’s role: Purples co-initiation and collaborative development of its game models. 2021–2023 / Interactive theatre, a voting game and a transcript archive Six fighters and a four-hour countdown: votes held by the audience continually change the event. Public poster for Duel Club, 23 October 2021. He Fa’s role Purples co-initiation and collaborative development of its game models Co-initiators Purples: Shen Bolun, He Fa and Shao Yifan Performance 23 October 2021, 24KiCK Fight Academy, Botai branch, Beijing Transcript publication 10 April 2023, Hours One to Four ## Work record Saturday Four-Hour Duel Club, 2021–2023. Interactive theatre, a voting game and a transcript archive. He Fa’s role: Purples co-initiation and collaborative development of its game models. Work / series Saturday Four-Hour Duel Club Date 2021–2023 Medium Interactive theatre, a voting game and a transcript archive He Fa’s role Purples co-initiation and collaborative development of its game models Catalogue section Collaborative practice Cite this record: Saturday Four-Hour Duel Club · 2021–2023 · Purples co-initiation and collaborative development of its game models · [https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/duel-club](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/duel-club) [23 October 2021 · Third-hour elimination-vote continuous excerpt · YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip97aqQJ6IU) [2021-10-14 · Source article (Chinese)](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2021/2021-10-14-演员-玩家招募-决斗俱乐部-招募开始啦-3336472a86/) [2021-10-14 · Source article (Chinese)](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2021/2021-10-14-一场由你决定输赢的决斗-3d7b063caf/) [2023-04-10 · Source article (Chinese)](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2023/2023-04-10-第一小时-10月23日决斗俱乐部-2049eab95a/) [2023-04-10 · Source article (Chinese)](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2023/2023-04-10-第二小时-10月23日决斗俱乐部-df1dde4ae0/) [2023-04-10 · Source article (Chinese)](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2023/2023-04-10-第三小时-10月23日决斗俱乐部-f8f415ecda/) [2023-04-10 · Source article (Chinese)](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2023/2023-04-10-第四小时-10月23日决斗俱乐部-6bcc0b429d/) [2022-07-18 · Source article (Chinese)](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2022/2022-07-18-p4剧场-过去-现在-未来-510-73d5a1df7f/) [Purples Project Introduction · Selected historical pages · PDF](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/downloads/purple-action-introduction-selected-20260916.pdf) [Purples Presentation Proposal · Selected historical pages · PDF](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/downloads/purple-action-presentation-proposal-selected-20260916.pdf) WORK WORLD / OPEN FROM HERE What changes when the audience can vote—and what stays? ## Turning the ring into a theatre of judgment Saturday Four-Hour Duel Club is a performance and game model within Purples. Six recruits entered as “fighters,” bringing their lived experiences while seeking audience support. The event on 23 October 2021 took place in a Beijing boxing gym, with a four-hour countdown and five eliminations. Performance, persuasion and audience votes determined who remained, rather than fighting skills. The call required no professional performance experience and proposed several workshop-style rehearsals. The ring, countdown, voting marbles and scales made a mechanism of allocation visible: some people competed for attention while others occupied the position of spectator and judge. He Fa co-initiated Purples with Shen Bolun and Shao Yifan, and this work developed within that collaboration. ## Writing after the four hours Four transcripts published in 2023 preserve Hours One to Four, keeping the host’s, fighters’ and spectators’ voices within the unfolding event. The call and record can be read together to examine how a rule was used through speech, questions, silence and voting. Original role labels are retained without assigning unverified real names to their lines. ## A later presentation proposal Voting with marbles in the contemporary event materials and counting votes through drinks in the later Presentation Proposal belong to different versions. The proposal retains six fighters, four hours and five eliminations while setting out another arrangement of rules and scheduling. Read these proposed conditions alongside the record of the event on 23 October 2021. See source pages 13–14 of the Presentation Proposal. The contemporary call and four-hour transcripts remain linked on this page. ## Moving image & related documents [23 October 2021 · Third-hour elimination-vote continuous excerpt · YouTube ↗](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip97aqQJ6IU) [2021-10-14 · Source article (Chinese) ↗](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2021/2021-10-14-演员-玩家招募-决斗俱乐部-招募开始啦-3336472a86/) [2021-10-14 · Source article (Chinese) ↗](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2021/2021-10-14-一场由你决定输赢的决斗-3d7b063caf/) [2023-04-10 · Source article (Chinese) ↗](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2023/2023-04-10-第一小时-10月23日决斗俱乐部-2049eab95a/) [2023-04-10 · Source article (Chinese) ↗](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2023/2023-04-10-第二小时-10月23日决斗俱乐部-df1dde4ae0/) [2023-04-10 · Source article (Chinese) ↗](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2023/2023-04-10-第三小时-10月23日决斗俱乐部-f8f415ecda/) [2023-04-10 · Source article (Chinese) ↗](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2023/2023-04-10-第四小时-10月23日决斗俱乐部-6bcc0b429d/) [2022-07-18 · Source article (Chinese) ↗](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2022/2022-07-18-p4剧场-过去-现在-未来-510-73d5a1df7f/) [Purples Project Introduction · Selected historical pages · PDF ↗](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/downloads/purple-action-introduction-selected-20260916.pdf) [Purples Presentation Proposal · Selected historical pages · PDF ↗](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/downloads/purple-action-presentation-proposal-selected-20260916.pdf) ## Archive note Compiled from contemporary calls, project descriptions, later records and selected project documents retaining their source page numbers. Event announcements, retrospective accounts and presentation proposals retain their distinct status. English translations were prepared for this archive. ## Continue exploring ### Purples / Purple Action Roles, rules, speech and collective judgment become theatre within a jointly constructed fictional world. ### Final Solution Speech, judgment and voting become theatrical actions within a fictional end-of-world assembly. ### P4 Theater Spaces, participants, events and documentation change one another through sustained work. CLOSE READING / 2026 CURATORIAL INTERPRETATION ## Saturday Four-Hour Duel Club What changes when the audience can vote—and what stays? ### Begin with what happens in the work Six “fighters” enter a boxing venue, seeking audience support through a four-hour countdown and five elimination rounds. Marbles and weighing scales take part in deciding who stays; victory is not determined by fighting skill. The ring borrows the space of competition and turns the contest toward securing support. Performance, lived experience, persuasion and audience judgment share a limited duration. This is not a simple advance from passive watching to active participation. Voting has consequences, but elimination restricts those consequences to staying or leaving. Spectators judge while fighters must keep seeking retention. The difference between these positions becomes materially visible in scales and a countdown. The four-hour transcript published in 2023 adds a record of the rules being used. Readers can move from the invitation’s promises into live speech and examine what hosting, questioning, silence and persuasion did to the arrangement. Any discussion of the work’s politics should stay with these distributions rather than announcing democracy simply because a vote exists. Rules begin an event, and people within it reveal wishes and frustrations the rules have not settled. ### The limits of this reading The performance year is distinguished from transcript publication; lines are not assigned real identities without a verified correspondence. Based on the October 2021 open calls and performance record, and the transcripts of Hours One to Four published on 10 April 2023. [Work archive and source documents](#work-record) [2021-10-14 · Source article (Chinese)](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2021/2021-10-14-演员-玩家招募-决斗俱乐部-招募开始啦-3336472a86/) [2021-10-14 · Source article (Chinese)](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2021/2021-10-14-一场由你决定输赢的决斗-3d7b063caf/) TAKE A PATH ACROSS ## Other paths from this work. Rules and choices The planned bounds of losing control [Saturday Four-Hour Duel Club](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/duel-club) ↔ [The Invisible Odyssey / Performance Exhibition Proposal](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/invisible-odyssey) The Invisible Odyssey sets loss of control as a proposed aim; Duel Club operates through a countdown and elimination. Both anticipate unknown outcomes, but actual voting consequences cannot substantiate a proposal whose realization remains unverified. 2021–2023 / Interactive theatre, a voting game and a transcript archive 2016 / Collaborative performance exhibition proposal · Proposals Read the source materials Period document [A proposal concerned with loss of control ↗](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/invisible-odyssey#chapter-1) The 2016 proposal aims at loss of control through actions involving a team of thirty; this is the proposal’s premise. Period document [Turning the ring into a theatre of judgment ↗](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/duel-club#chapter-1) The call for 23 October 2021 specifies six fighters, a four-hour countdown and five rounds of audience elimination votes; later proposals do not replace this version. [Continue from this work ↗](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/crossings#work=invisible-odyssey) Rules and choices ### The planned bounds of losing control [Saturday Four-Hour Duel Club](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/duel-club) ↔ [The Invisible Odyssey / Performance Exhibition Proposal](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/invisible-odyssey) The Invisible Odyssey sets loss of control as a proposed aim; Duel Club operates through a countdown and elimination. Both anticipate unknown outcomes, but actual voting consequences cannot substantiate a proposal whose realization remains unverified. 2021–2023 / Interactive theatre, a voting game and a transcript archive 2016 / Collaborative performance exhibition proposal · Proposals Period document [A proposal concerned with loss of control ↗](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/invisible-odyssey#chapter-1) The 2016 proposal aims at loss of control through actions involving a team of thirty; this is the proposal’s premise. The 2016 proposal aims at loss of control through actions involving a team of thirty; this is the proposal’s premise. Period document [Turning the ring into a theatre of judgment ↗](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/duel-club#chapter-1) The call for 23 October 2021 specifies six fighters, a four-hour countdown and five rounds of audience elimination votes; later proposals do not replace this version. The call for 23 October 2021 specifies six fighters, a four-hour countdown and five rounds of audience elimination votes; later proposals do not replace this version. FROM HERE, ELSEWHERE ## Passages between works [Who decides](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/paths/who-arranges) Voting lets spectators decide who stays; the countdown and elimination system determine what kind of decision they can make. Voting lets spectators decide who stays; the countdown and elimination system determine what kind of decision they can make. ### Related records in the archive [Purples / Purple Action ↗](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/purple-action) 2021 [Final Solution ↗](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/final-solution) 2021 [P4 Theater ↗](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/p4-theatre) 2015–present