Review: 我咽下一枚铁做的月亮 - I SWALLOWED A MOON MADE OF IRON – OZASIA FESTIVAL 2023 at Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Thursday 26th October 2023.

I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron is the title of one of the poems of Xu Lizhi that have been set to music and performed by composer, Njo Kong Kie. Xu Lizhi worked on the assembly line in the Foxconn electronics factory in Shenzhen that manufactured components for the many electronic gadgets on which we rely, and his growing depression at this mundane, unrewarding, and boring existence, with little outside of work other than an isolated existence in his tiny room, is reflected in the poems that he wrote during the three and a half years that he worked there. He took his own life in 2014 in Foxconn’s worker dormitory, aged only 24.

Njo Kong Kie’s performance combines movement, spoken poems, poems sung in Mandarin, accompanying himself on the piano, soundscapes, visual images and videos, and projected translations. The stage is bare, save for a large metal cube, the grand piano, and the big screen at the rear. Lighting is mostly restricted to small pools of cold, hard light that come and go as the performer moves around.

He enters silently, slowly, exploring the space, enacting Xu’s life, crawling under the piano into what, perhaps, indicates the restriction of Xu’s room, and then sings the first poem in this song cycle, Rented Room, in which Xu describes the ten feet square space in which he lives, represented by a square of lighting at the start of the performance, and the effect that it has on him. Working Life next describes his mind-numbing daily routine. A Screw Fell to the Ground is a metaphor for a fallen worker.

Working hours are long and pay is low, yet the only thing that he has to look forward to is that meagre monthly pay packet. There is no future beyond more of the same. It is not only Xu’s story; he speaks for all who are caught up in the exploitation of labour by owners and management who are solely in pursuit of profits, and for the many others, people treated as numbers, who committed suicide. The worst of capitalism is, ironically, in a communist country. Nothing has changed since then.

Njo Kong Kie has set the poems to music, capturing the essence of each poem superbly. He conveys every bit of emotion inherent in the verses, both in the piano scores, and in his performance. Even without the benefit of the English translations, the pain, suffering, frustration, resignation, anger, and depression are clearly conveyed.

Njo Kong Kie’s committed performance was captivating. The audience sat in silence, barely moving, allowing a pause after he had left the stage, still delivering Xu’s words, fading into the darkness, before bursting into applause.

This was a deeply moving and most memorable performance, and a worthy inclusion in this year’s OzAsia Festival.

I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron by Xu Lizhi

I swallowed a moon made of iron
They refer to it as a nail
I swallowed this industrial sewage, these unemployment documents
Youth stooped at machines die before their time
I swallowed the hustle and the destitution
Swallowed pedestrian bridges, life covered in rust
I can’t swallow any more
All that I’ve swallowed is now gushing out of my throat
Unfurling on the land of my ancestors
Into a disgraceful poem.