New Earth Theatre and Chinese Arts Now (CAN) have chosen Pamela Carter and Tobi Poster-Su to receive the inaugural Digital Theatre Commisssion. 

The artists will both receive a £4000 commission to mount their work digitally as part of CAN Festival 2021, a festival that explores Chinese themes, stories and art forms. This commission was launched in response to the Covid-19 Coronavirus outbreak. As a result their work will be shared digitally via online platforms and audiences will be able to watch, listen and participate remotely.

The commission was open to artists who identify as having Chinese cultural heritage and/or who make work that incorporates contemporary Chinese perspectives for support to develop a new digital commission.

Chinese Arts Now (CAN) is the first National Portfolio Organisation awarded by Arts Council England to produce and present contemporary performing arts work that explores Chinese themes, stories and art forms. CAN is an annual festival that brings a diverse range of contemporary performing and digital arts to the public.

Duck Rabbit by Pamela Carter is a visual journey into a woman’s life, which takes the audience on an impossible story spanning time and real historical events. It is a piece about heredity, hybridity, historiography and representing ‘mixed-race’, touching on the subjects of war, cultural identity, gender, and colonialism.

Chang and Eng and Me (and Me) by Tobi Poster Su is a split-screen digital theatre performance incorporating puppetry to tell the story of Chang and Eng Bunker, Thai conjoined twins of Chinese descent who immigrated to the US and over the course of their lifetimes were both servants and slave owners. Weaved in with reflections of Poster-Su’s own life, Chang and Eng and Me (and Me) explores the ideas of identity and privilege.