2022 / Continuing workshops, relational practice and documentation

Romance Theatre

Shared exercises and lived encounters return through documentation to theatre.

He Fa’s role: Organisation and continuing practice, documented in his interview
Original proposal text: Liang Yin, 3 November 2022
Dated records: Recruitment and meeting records in November 2022; retrospective interview published November 2023

Complete chapter contents

From proposal to continuing practice

In November 2022, Liang Yin published the call for Romance Theatre. The proposal asked participants to build relationships through group exercises, record lived encounters, derive a script from the recordings and eventually play themselves. A meeting article published on 6 November records the project’s initial gathering. Romance serves as a subject and brings participants into contact with their own and others’ expectations.

In an interview published in 2023, He Fa explicitly states that he was working on this project and describes continuing workshops roughly two or three times a week. Attendance was not fixed. Pandemic restrictions in November 2022 prevented some participants from attending, while others returned after restrictions eased. His account places the proposal’s schedule within lived circumstances: continuing work depends on the ability to meet and on individual wishes and practical conditions.

Proposal and archival reading

The nine-day rhythm, proposed relationship development and filming plan belong to the original method. This page considers the movement between theatre and life that the proposal sets out. Its claims about perceptual capacities and relationship outcomes remain claims made in the proposal, rather than verified effects.

Moving image & related documents

Archive note

Compiled from the listed P4 documents, with later recollections dated separately. Editorial description and source excerpts are distinguished. English translations were prepared for this archive.

Continue exploring

2015–present↗

P4 Theater

Spaces, participants, events and documentation change one another through sustained work.

Collaborative practice

DOCUMENT

2023↗

Becoming Wind, Breaking Waves

A personal account by Lifeng calls others into a shared creative process.

Collaborative practice

2023↗

Personal Chronicle / PHA

Begin with a personal account, propose a project publicly, and continue the archive through action.

Collaborative practice

Work record

Romance Theatre, 2022. Continuing workshops, relational practice and documentation. He Fa’s role: Organisation and continuing practice, documented in his interview.

Work / series: Romance Theatre
Date: 2022
Medium: Continuing workshops, relational practice and documentation
He Fa’s role: Organisation and continuing practice, documented in his interview
Catalogue section: Collaborative practice

Cite this record: Romance Theatre · 2022 · Organisation and continuing practice, documented in his interview · https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/romance-theatre

Read Markdown ↓All work records ↗

TAKE A PATH ACROSS

Other paths from this work.

Keeping and losing
How a record becomes material again
Romance Theatre Inside and Outside a Vehicle
Inside and Outside a Vehicle reorders city fragments; Liang Yin’s Romance Theatre proposal feeds records of interactions back into a script. One changes photographic positions; the other must also face participants’ willingness to continue relating.
2022 / Continuing workshops, relational practice and documentation
2009 / Photography, light box
Read the source materials
1. Work imageImages and presentation ↗
  The first image arranges roads, vehicles and nearby buildings in repeated horizontal rows.
2. Period documentFrom proposal to continuing practice ↗
  Liang Yin’s November 2022 call proposes recording relationships, developing a script from the recordings and performance by participants; He Fa’s later account is dated separately.
Continue from this work ↗
Body and presence
Relations change a role’s position
Romance Theatre Breaking the Moon
Liang Yin’s Romance Theatre proposal feeds interaction records into a script; a Breaking the Moon rehearsal account turns an observer role into a participant in a relationship. Life and theatre rewrite one another without making real people identical to characters.
2022 / Continuing workshops, relational practice and documentation
2023 / Theatre, rehearsal and production archive
Read the source materials
1. Period documentFrom proposal to continuing practice ↗
  Liang Yin’s November 2022 call proposes recording relationships, developing a script from the recordings and performance by participants; He Fa’s later account is dated separately.
2. Period documentThe supervising producer within collaborative rehearsal ↗
  An actor’s account of 7 December 2023 records an observer role becoming a participant through discussion, with He Fa contributing as supervisor; actor and character remain distinct.
Continue from this work ↗