Electric Shadows
While June is a month of lotus festival and exhibition excitement, another presentation has been running with perhaps less fanfare but as much enchantment in the Museum of Macao. A Journey through Light and Shadow – The Invention of Photography and the Earliest Photographs of Macao, China opened in May and will run into late August. Grace Lei is the curator of the presentation and she describes it ‘an exhibition about knowledge, research, art and fun’. It follows the history of photography by describing the development of various photographic processes as they became increasingly more sophisticated through the years. Many old photos never previously displayed are on show with various cameras including, in what must be a kind of coup, the world’s first camera which, normally housed at Chalon-sur-Saone, has only left its home for four exhibitions – in Paris, New York, Beijing and now Macau.

As the title indicates, this is not only an exhibition of the historical progress of world photography but Macau’s place in that history. And the SAR had a particular role to play, for it was through Macau that photography entered and became established in China. In 1844-5, a French delegation arrived in Macau to sign the Treaty of Whampoa with China. Among its members, Jules Itier was a customs inspector and amateur photographer who had made many daguerreotypes along the trip from France. In China, he took photos in Macau, Hong Kong and Whampoa, photographing landscapes, architecture and numerous portraits, including those of Chinese high officials. Those taken in Macau have been identified as the first photographs ever taken in China.

The exhibition is thus in two parts: the first is on the origins of photography and daguerreotypes and exhibits old pictures and early cameras and the second is on how the French introduced photography into China via Macau. The latter, displays photographs on the life and culture of Macau, Hong Kong and Guangzhou from 1844 until the early 20th century.

A Journey Through Light and Shadow will run from now until August 23, Tuesday-Sunday. Entry is MOP$15 except for the 15th of every month when it is free. 3/F, The Museum of Macau.

Zaia
What a difference twenty-five years make. In 1984, Guy Laliberte and a small group of French-Canadian street performers formed Cirque du Soleil, a group of talented acrobats, fire-breathers, musicians and dancers. A quarter-century later, Laliberte‘s humble circus troupe has become a corporate behemoth that boasts a total of nineteen shows being performed around the world. Cirque’s recent 25th anniversary celebration was a typically whimsical global affair, complete with mass stilt-walking and thousands of light-up clown noses.

The troupe’s first resident show in Asia, Zaia, opened last August at the Macau Venetian hotel. Since then, the show has undergone a few tweaks, including a revamped opening number and a new juggling act. As Zaia’s Artistic Director Joel Bergeron explains, ‘It’s quite normal for Cirque du Soleil shows to continue growing when they’re first born’

Cirque du Soleil has touted the show as the latest in a long line of triumphs, but the scene at Zaia on 16 June told a different story. In honor of Cirque’s 25th, members of that night’s audience were given free champagne, the aforementioned clown noses, and a chance to take pictures of themselves with costumed Zaia stars. But all the hoopla couldn’t camouflage a surprise lurking in the theatre: numerous, conspicuously empty seats.
Maybe the unfilled chairs are simply the result of how large Zaia’s custom-built theatre is. It’s got 1800 seats, along with a 24-meter high ceiling and an extraordinarily complicated set that takes up to forty technicians to operate. All in all, the enormous performing space looks like something from another world, filled with dramatic curves and deep blues that represent the show’s outer space setting.

Behind the scenes, things are a bit more mundane—or, at least, they appear to be until you take a closer look. This maze of drab, beige hallways is where the whimsical props, costumes, and sets that compliment Zaia’s acrobats are born. An enormous metal contraption with four legs and a furry head, the prototype for the polar bear that floats above the stage during the show, hangs from the ceiling in the prop shop. In the wig shop, plaster busts stare blankly from a shelf—head molds of every performer. Zaia’s training room is not just a gym—it’s got swaths of fabric hanging from the ceiling, perfect for practicing the “straps” act; a large trampoline helpfully positioned against a wall, so that acrobats can hone their vertical walking skills; and performers in full makeup milling about before the show.

Seeing what’s going on backstage and learning how much work has gone into Zaia makes those empty seats on June 16 even more puzzling. The actual performance, though, provides another possible explanation. Zaia is in no way a bad show. It features the same blend of death-defying stunts, surreal sets and costumes, and New Age-y music that has made other Cirque productions so successful.

And that’s precisely the problem. Zaia is a superb theatrical experience for anyone who has never seen a Cirque show before, but it isn’t inspiring or different enough to make most people want to go and see it a second time. The show is somehow less than the sum of its admittedly impressive parts. Bergeron calls Cirque’s Macau presence a “long-term adventure,” but it won’t be a particularly exciting adventure unless he and the rest of his team try harder to make their show stand out.
Hillary Busis