By Azura Farid
Content warning for mentions of suicide
I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron, a solo show by Canadian composer and performer Njo Kong Kie, sets the poetry of Xu Lizhi to music for voice and piano. The live performance incorporates movement, video projections, sound design and lighting to create a holistic theatrical experience.
Xu Lixhi was a prominent part of the worker-poet movement in China. He worked at the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, making electronic parts for one of Apple’s biggest suppliers, while writing poems about his struggles with the poor working conditions. He died by suicide in 2014, at the age of 24. His death came after 14 Foxconn workers also killed themselves in 2010 alone, drawing international attention.
After learning about Xu’s death, Njo was moved to create I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron, premiering it in Toronto in 2019 before touring it internationally. The performance in Singapore was its first stop on a tour of South East Asia.
The performance begins with a pre-recorded video message from Njo, in which he points out that the iPhone he’s using to record the video is the kind of device that Xu was making in the factory where he worked. For the rest of the show, it feels worth noting that Njo plays off a tablet rather than a printed score, which serves as a constantly visible reminder of the ubiquity of the electronic devices that Foxconn workers have toiled over. Using a tablet for scores is a practical choice for many musicians (and even more so in this show, since it allows Njo to read his score in low light), but that’s just it — these devices make people’s lives easier, to the point that using them becomes the easy or logical choice, but at what cost to the people who make them?
Njo’s evocative music and Ryan McNabb’s sound design work together to convey the striking images from Xu’s text, making use of effects such as banging on the piano keys to suggest the noise and mass of people in a factory in Working Life, or playing a repeated note on the piano to evoke the feeling of nodding off, the bleak repetitiveness of factory work in I Fall Asleep, Just Standing Like That.
The images from Xu’s text are also brought out in Ao Ieong Weng Fong’s multimedia, which provides another visual dimension to the performance, giving us a visual sense of place that we wouldn’t otherwise get without a set. In Mother, we see images of domestic objects (TV, clothes, furniture, dumbphone) which look worn, rundown and homely, evoking Xu’s longing for a faraway home and the faraway days of childhood — beautifully drawing out the sadness of a poem about a son realising he’s outgrown his mother.
Throughout the show, Njo’s displays versatile use of his voice and body, likely with the support of vocal coach Stacie Dunlop and movement coach William Yong. Njo has the ability to command the audience’s attention even when moving silently, and to adapt his voice for an intended effect. In Working Life, he employs a semi-spoken approach when speaking as the line manager (“The line manager says, you chose to come work / No one forces you”), and the vocal writing showcases his lower register. Another poem, Belated Remorse, is performed entirely with spoken voice, Njo moving with no accompanying music except the sound design of a crowded fast food joint, which enhances the setting evoked by the poem.
The realisation of the titular poem, I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron, is one of the most all-encompassing ones in the show. Njo gives an emotional performance of the yearning melody, the simple piano accompaniment making space for him to showcase a vulnerable and emotional sound in the upper range of his voice. The video shown is a bleak and beautiful video of birds flying around a moonlit sky. As the song draws to a close (“I can swallow no more / Everything I have swallowed / Now gushes from my throat”), the multimedia and the piano part reinforce the water imagery, with video footage of waves, and chords that ebb and flow like the sea.
The final song, I know the day will come, is stark and moving, in a way that matches Xu’s writing style. Njo sings a capella while closing the piano lid, building a sense of foreboding while singing Xu’s haunting words, “I know the day will come / When those I know and don’t know / Will come into my room / And clean up the remains I leave behind”. He walks out through the audience while singing, and we feel a sense of loss: “After all is tidied / Everyone will line up to leave / And softly close the door for me”.
Leaving the venue, I’m struck by lingering feelings of sadness and reflection. I also find myself thinking about what it means for this work to be performed in this venue, in this country. Much of Singapore is built by migrant labourers who live and work in exploitative conditions not unlike those Xu Lizhi describes in his poetry. The technology that makes us a ‘Smart Nation’ is made by workers like Xu. For this work to be performed in the former Parliament, where laws were passed that form the status quo, feels appropriate.
With his moving and sensitive realisation of Xu’s words, Njo is giving them a new life, ensuring that they live on in all their power, and giving them new power by presenting them in an embodied performance that feels like Xu is speaking to us through Njo. Reading Xu’s poems in written form is, of course, different from seeing and hearing them performed by a person who is sharing your physical space: a reader can interact with written poems in their own time, while an audience must experience a performance in real time together with the performer. Xu is no longer around to experience real time with us, but Njo can bring us along with him, to make us feel the despair, grief, resignation that Xu felt, and that workers like Xu continue to feel.
Writer’s Statement
Each response published on Critics Circle Blog is paired with a statement from the writer where their politic, entry point, purpose, and intended audience is made clear.
My response to this work was informed by my background as a musician and theatre practitioner with a particular interest in voice and text. Since it was performed in Singapore on just one night, I aimed for my review to give readers who may not have seen the show a sense of what the experience was like, while also capturing my subjective response to the aspects of this multi-faceted work that resonated most with me.
This response to ‘I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron‘ was written at the invitation of the production, which provided our writer with a complimentary ticket in order to write the review.
Further Responses
Shawn Hoo in The Straits Times
And many others from other tour stops, easily Google-able, or found on the show’s website
I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron
Venue: Chamber, The Arts House
Performed: 14 March 2023
Presented by Creative Links and Music Picnic in association with Point View Art
Poet: 许立志 Xu Lizhi
Composer, Director, Performer & Co-Producer: 杨光奇 Njo Kong Kie
Set & Lighting Designer: 冯国基 Fung Kwok Kee, Gabriel
Photographer & Filmmaker: 欧阳永锋 AO IEONG Weng Fong
Sound Designer: Ryan McNabb
Video Designer (Text): 余志力 Nicholas Yee
Vocal Coach: Stacie Dunlop
Movement Coach: 杨汉源 William Yong
Drama Coach & English Translator: 关显扬 Derek Kwan
Stage Manager: 蒋家宁 Karen Chiang
Tour Lighting Director: Sebastian Marziali
Technical Director, Production Manager, Video Effects Director & Co-Producer:
邝华欢 Kuong Wa Fun, Erik
Co-Producer: 何光前 Hoo Kuan Cien
PR Consultant: 陈炜婷Shannen Tan
Graphic Design: CROP
Front of House: Samzy Jo
Supported by the Cultural Development Fund of the Macao S.A.R. Government, Canada Council for the Arts and Ontario Arts Council.
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