13th Anniversary of Red Room
13th Anniversary of Red Room
Emergence, by definition, is the process of coming into existence or the process of becoming visible after being concealed. In one way or another, we all have stories of emergence, stories of the days we dared, the days we shifted shapes and entered a new stage. Red Room is a community that encourages and embraces emergence. The non-profit platform has developed numerous events that cultivate a culture of learning to listen to each other, what is around us, and ourselves. Whether it is spoken word, music, visual arts, theatre, or family-friendly activities, Red Room enables its participants to emerge, to explore their passion with other artists and creatives. And it has now been so for thirteen years!
To celebrate its anniversary, Red Room hosted a special Stage Time and Wine night on the theme of emergence. Redroomers were encouraged to share their journey and the role Red Room has played in their life. ST&W takes place every third Saturday of each month at the Red Room Rendezvous. It is an opportunity for all kinds of performers to share their art during an open mic session. And let me tell you, this anniversary ST&W was a great success! As the new intern at Red Room, I had been waiting for this 3rd Saturday of November impatiently. What was the core event of Red Room going to look like? Would it be as multi-generational, cross-cultural and community-fostering as I hoped for?
On D-day, at barely 7 pm, the Red Room Rendezvous was already swarming with people running up and down the stairs, moving furniture around, greeting one another, embracing long-known faces, or shaking hands on a first encounter. Sixty people, two floors, a wonderful synergy. The magic happened on the first floor, under deemed lights, where the stage met with the feet of the audience. It jumped from heart to heart, trickled down the stairs, and spread to the ground floor and the terrasse, till all attendees pulsated on one same tempo. The venue was packed. We all shared a warm Dal and as we carefully stepped around one another, we tried not to spill the lentils on the oriental carpet. That, in itself, was already a performance; the members of the audience, aware of each other’s presence, organised themselves and made room for all souls. Meanwhile, Marley, Tina’s dog, ran from a spectator’s vegan hamburger to the feet of the performers and was greeted with pats on the back. This sixteen years old Dachshund had attended more ST&Ws than most people present that night!
That is the thing with Red Room, anyone is welcome, and anyone can get involved. As the artist and Redroomer Tim Nathan Joel puts it:
“ Home, home is a place that has to be believed before it can be found – in a sense, that is the Red Room as well.”
Red Room is a space created and re-created by its participants. It is to celebrate what the Redroomers have built over the past thirteen years that Red Room has organised this anniversary ST&W. The platform has come a long way since the co-founders, Ayesha Mehta and Ping Chu envisioned the community over a cup of tea in Taitung. At their first ST&W at Aveda’s Learning Kitchen, they were flabbergasted to see no less than a hundred people attend. Each attendee brought wine or a vegetable to add to the stone soup.
Have you ever heard of stone soup? It comes from a European folk story in which a hungry stranger convinces the people of a town to each share a small amount of their food in order to make a meal that everyone can enjoy. The stranger, missing ingredients, first put stones in the boiling water of his pot. The inhabitants of the town, curious about what would happen, pitched in – a cabbage here, a carrot there. This epitomises Red Room’s message and purpose. It started from nothing, from stones, and with the help of its members, it evolved to become what it is today, a shared soup, infused with the spices of all. A soup created because it was first believed in.
Over the last thirteen years, the organisation has developed from its core platform – Stage Time & Wine – to launch various projects. Red Room Radio Redux saw the light in 2012, as a group of Red Roomers tried to revive radio theatre. A year later, Red Room partnered with Taipei city Playgroup to host Stage Time and Juice, an event that welcomes children to express themselves on an open mic stage. Red Room quickly outgrew its home at the Aveda Learning kitchen and moved to a new venue at the old Taiwan Air Force base (TAF) in 2015. There, they launched Visual Dialogues, art exhibitions that brought together two artists of different backgrounds and cultures every month.
But in the light of Covid and with the end of its lease at the Air Force, Red Room has faced difficult times. Resourceful, its members have decided to open a restaurant – the Red Room Rendezvous – where Red Room still hosts its events. During the lockdown, gatherings would take place online, and now, slowly but surely, activities are starting to flow again. Since 2020, the organisation helps with TAIPEI SHORTS – a yearly festival that presents original short plays written and performed by expats and Taiwanese. Red Room developed Trash to Treasure workshops where participants up-cycle what is about to be thrown away. This year, the platform also partnered with the Museum of World Religions to co-produce International Women’s day. They hosted and promoted discussions about the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women in Taiwan. And the two non-profits will partner again to organise International Women’s day 2023! This year, Red Room also partnered with Women’s Nest, an NGO for indigenous women from the Bunan, Kanakanavu, and Sara Peoples in Kaohsiung. The participants from Taipei had the opportunity to see the mountain environment and get to know the NGO. With projects like this, and many more, Red Room proves to be versatile, it always finds a way because before being a physical space, it is a community.
It is this community feeling I experienced during the anniversary ST&W. Marley, the host, the manager, the first-timers, the old faces, the organising crew, and the Redroomers all pulsated to the rhythm of the bells wrapped around Tracy’s ankle as Rajat sang with all his soul “Bonde Maya Lagaise” by Shah Abdul Karim, a song from present day Bangladesh. The fingers of Manav ran on his handpan with inspiration. Singers found the confidence to sing their original songs for the first time. Witty poets spoke of wampees from Hong Kong, of Papayas to be bought, of rain, of love, of their love of rain. Jvana, the colourful host, sang the Lava song and many sang along. Later, two dancers asked for absolute darkness except for phone lights. On Claire de Lune by Claude Debussy, their bodies intertwined and their shadows reverberated on all walls.
Each performer shared with the audience a piece of themselves and their vulnerability was welcomed with open arms, tender smiles, and rolls of applause. We listened with our eyes, tasted with our ears, and touched with our hearts. The show may have lasted from 7.30 to 10.30 but it sure felt like 20 minutes. How time flies when we actively listen!
As the co-founder Ayesha Metha puts it:
“Listening is muscular. Listening is the rolling of joints, the smoke of breath through a body, singing out a mouth. Listening is the bearing of blood, and the seeing of feeling. Listening is the same as touch. It can make love, be live, centre and land a soul. Listening is transport, reminds you space and time are malleable, multi dimensional, formless, dancing.”
Each Red Room event is unique and transcending, but they all have this one thing in common; people come ready to listen and create together.
I cannot wait to go to the next Stage Time and Wine on the 3rd Saturday of this month and I hope to meet you there!
Manelle Liagre
Intern at Red Room
October-November 2022
Published in the Centered on Taipei magazine. Pages 8-10.