解码曾吴作品《对联/对练》| To Decode the Hybrid：Wu Tsang’s Work Duilian
Wu Tsang is a filmmaker, visual artist, performer, organizer and activist, currently based in Los Angeles. Born in Massachusetts, USA, in 1982 to a Chinese father and a Swedish-American mother, and as a transgender, she is no stranger to “hybrid,” which is also a key feature embedded in her life and her work.
曾吴是一位电影制作人、视觉艺术家、表演者、活动组织者和行动主义者，目前生活在洛杉矶。她于1982年出生在美国马萨诸塞州，父亲是华人，母亲是瑞典籍美国人。同时她又是一名跨性别者，因此她对于“混合”毫不陌生。“混合”也是她的人生和作品的重要特征。
Wu Tsang 曾吴
Her life is hybrid. She incorporates strategies of activism, art making, event planning, and stage production across a range of multi-disciplinary projects. Apart from making art projects, she also hosts clubs and parties in a bar called Silver Platter in Los Angeles, a refuge and microtopia for LGBTQ community and immigrants, for which Tsang created a film called Wildness which was presented at the Whitney Biennial in 2012.
她的人生是多面多彩的。她涉足多种跨领域项目，融合了行动主义、艺术创作、活动策划和舞台制作等多项策略和技能。除了创作艺术项目之外，她在洛杉矶的Silver Platter酒吧里主持活动和聚会。该酒吧一直是性少数群体和移民人士的避风港和乌托邦，曾吴为此制作了一部名为《狂野无际》的影片，于2012年在惠特尼双年展上展出。
Her work is hybrid. Take Duilian as an example, a ten-year film project. In 2005, Wu Tsang came to Chongqing, her father’s homeland, to seek out her cultural roots. It was her first time to visit China. The homebound trip turned out to be disheartening as she felt like a misfit. There was no such a thing as LGTBQ community in there. But it ended up with a serendipitous discovery of Qiu Jin’s story in Shaoxing. After ten years of research and incubation, Tsang created and crafted the 30-min film of Duilian during her residency in Spring Workshop in Hong Kong.
她的作品是形式多样、内涵丰富的。以《对联/对练》为例，这是一个长达10年的项目。2005年，曾吴来到父亲的故乡重庆寻根，这是她首次来到中国。结果这趟寻根之旅让她怅然不已，因为她感觉自己与故乡格格不入，那里根本就没有性少数群体这个说法。不过在经过绍兴时，曾吴意外地发现了秋瑾的故事，非常惊喜。经过十年的研究和酝酿，她在香港Spring Workshop驻留期间精心创作完成了这部30分钟的电影，命名为《对联/对练》。
The title of this short film Duilian is a homophone that refers both to couplet poetry and wushu sword fighting. Just as the title implies, the film features sword fighting scenes performed by Wu Tsang and her partner named boychild, and poetic voiceover narrating the plot development as well as the inside voice of the heroine.
电影名Duilian（《对联/对练》）是同音异义词，既指诗歌中的对偶，也指武术中的剑术练习。电影也如其标题所示，既有曾吴及其搭档boychild等人的舞剑戏份，也有诗歌旁白，叙述情节发展和主人公的心理活动。
Wu Tsang, Duilian, 2016, HD video with color and sound,30 min
曾吴，对联/对练，2016年，高清彩色有声视频，30分钟
The heroine in Duilian is Qui Jin (1875–1907), a household name in China known for her involvement to overthrow the Qing Dynasty. She was a feminist, revolutionary and poet, often referred to as the "Woman knight of Mirror Lake" and "Chinese Joan of Arc". She boldly challenged traditional gender roles, fought for equal rights and opportunities for women, and was arrested and beheaded for a failed uprising at the age of 32. Though Qiu Jin is recorded as a national hero in textbooks, museums, theaters, films, her private life and sexuality have remained obscure, neither was she fond of martial arts or wearing male clothes.
《对联/对练》的主人公是在中国家喻户晓的秋瑾 (1875–1907)，为推翻满清政权而英勇就义。她是一位女性主义者、革命者、诗人，人称“鉴湖女侠“和“中国的圣女贞德“。她勇敢挑战传统观念的性别角色，为女性争取平权和机会，最终在32岁时因起义失败而被斩首。尽管秋瑾一直作为民族英雄记录在课本、博物馆、剧场和电影作品中，她的个人生活和性取向却不为人知，也很少有人提及她爱好武术和身穿男装。
Qiu Jin 秋瑾
Qiu Jin in male clothes 秋瑾男装像
Duilian also brings into the spotlight a lesser-known figure, Wu Zhiying or Madame Wu (played by Wu Tsang in the film), Qiu Jin (played by boychild)’s rumored female lover. She was the one who buried Qiu Jin and wrote biography and poems to mourn her at the risk of her own life and reputation.
电影也让观众注意到另一位相较而言不太知名的人物——吴芝瑛或“吴夫人“（电影中由曾吴饰演），传闻她是秋瑾（由boychild饰演）的同性恋人。正是她冒着生命和名誉毁损的危险，埋葬了秋瑾，并著书写诗悼念。
The film is a hybrid of documentary and fiction, magical realism, and Kung-fu. Set in contemporary Hong Kong, it was filmed on a junk boat on Hong Kong harbor, it contrasted with the surrounding skyscrapers and modern architecture and created a juxtaposition of the past and present, fact and fiction. Tsang explored Qiu Jin’s relationship with her female friend Wu Zhiying but did not intend to make the story "queer" by explicitly pointing out that the heroines were lesbian lovers, but rather dramatized their passionate and committed relationship.
这部电影也是多种体裁的“混合”，糅合了纪录片、科幻片、魔幻现实主义和功夫片等不同特征。电影在当代的香港取景，拍摄于港口水域的船上，与周边的摩天大楼和现代建筑形成鲜明对比，呈现出过去和现在、现实与虚拟的并置。曾吴在影片中探索秋瑾及其女性朋友吴芝瑛的关系，但她的目的并不在于明确指出两位女主人公的同性身份，使之成为同性恋故事；而是让她们之间的热烈而投入的情感为人所知。
Wu Tsang, Duilian, 2016, HD video with color and sound,30 min
曾吴，对联/对练，2016年，高清彩色有声视频，30分钟
Translating Madam Wu’s poems from traditional Chinese into contemporary words and context leads to multi-layered and nuanced translated versions, which reflects what we see and comprehend as a translator or reader. Wu Tsang decodes and retells Qiu Jin’s story by using willful mistranslation of the official narrative, interwoven with her personal experience and interpretation. To her, history is just a distortion anyway.
将吴芝瑛的诗由传统中文翻译成现代语境和语句，必然会产生不同层面、多种内涵的译文，其实反映了我们作为译者或读者的所见和理解角度。曾吴故意“错译”秋瑾生平故事的官方叙事，融合了自己的个人体验和解读，进行重新叙述。对于她来说，历史也是一种扭曲。
Wu Tsang, Duilian, 2016
曾吴，对联/对练，2016年
By recontextualizing the untold story of Qiu Jin and Wu Zhiying in contemporary Hong Kong, Wu Tsang unveils a history that is little known or fades into oblivion. Their story is open to interpretation, so is Tsang’s Duilian. She invites viewers to have different takes on established or seemingly correct things, just as she did on Qiu Jin’s story.
将秋瑾与吴芝瑛之间不为人知的故事重构于当代香港的语境，曾吴让这一段人们记忆中淡忘的历史又重新浮出水面。秋瑾与吴芝瑛的故事可以有广泛而开放的诠释，曾吴的《对联/对练》同样如此。她邀请观众重新思考一些约定俗成或看似正确的事实，建立自己的不同观点或立场，就如同她对于秋瑾与吴芝瑛这一段历史的思考。
In some way, Wu Tsang did find her roots in that trip to China.
从某种程度上说，曾吴在那趟中国的寻根之旅最终找到了她的文化之根。
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