Rising up from one’s own bad circumstances here, from the Newspapers, translated…
Twenty-eight years ago, the mime performer, Shang-De Yao just graduated from his elementary school years, and was unfortunately raped by a man he didn’t know, and since, he’d felt that a part of his body went missing, until he started taking up mime, did he slowly, find that missing part of himself back again. Recently, he’d made tours across the straits, to teach children about miming, found that there were, a lot of children from less fortunate backgrounds who’d returned back to the society, because of taking up mime just like him, “This, is the healing property of miming!”
Shang-De Yao was born in a family with a father who migrated from China and a mother who is Taiwanese, he has older siblings who are much older than he, the tragedy of his childhood caused him to turn dark, and he couldn’t manage to verbalize this “disgusting, dirty part” of himself out. His six years in middle school, whenever there was someone behind him, he’d started shivering and quivering hard, and he’d started distrusting people, distancing himself from his own family, and became incompetent in making the interpersonal connections with friends and families too.
After he’d graduated from the foreign languages department of Chongchen University, he’d gone to Paris to take up French, on the streets, he saw the ads for finding students of the Mime Workshops, and he’d become Etienne Decroux. Being a victim of sexual assault, plus he’d gained weight, he was called “Fatso”, “Fatass”, made me felt “stuck”, and his instructor called him “unique”, “I was finally able to see my own good qualities”.
Four years ago, Yao was chosen for the “tramping plan” by Yunmen Dance Group, went to “perform his mime tour” in China, he’d taught a group of orphans mime, and, he’d planned to visit them each and every year after the tour was over, taken them to the performances he was involved in everywhere. He’d found, that all of the children who were from bad family backgrounds, “their bodies became miniscule, they’d shared a similar past to me”, after they took up miming, they could slowly, open themselves up, continue to create, and, it’s like, their lives had begun anew.
In recent years, the programs he’d set up in the various elementary and middle schools “ten minutes of break time” had given him much inspirations. He was shocking to discover, that some of the kids would use violent actions in the interactions like pinning someone else down, and, gestured shooting them down, “I’d often wondered, if we could use miming, to help pull the children back to their innocent states, in this world, surrounded by violence.”
And, this is a man, who’d made his painful pasts meaningful, he’d found a way, to help himself heal up the hurts, the betrayals, and managed to find the trust in himself back again, and he’s helping more children who’d gone through similar things in their childhood to find their ways to express their pains too.
And no, still NOT my picture…
Life, the Obstacle Course 