Interview: Vivian Chong of BLIND DATES at Theatre Passe Muraille

Vivian Chong premieres her new solo theatre piece, BLIND DATES, at Theatre Passe Muraille. Directed by TPM artistic director Marjorie Chan, Chong's show invites audiences to experience the highs and lows of love through true stories from her dating life, interspersed with original songs. Chong's THE SUNGLASSES MONOLOGUE, which detailed her experience with a rare skin disorder, toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN), which led to permanent blindness, was a digital entry in the 2022 Next Stage Festival. Chong's subsequent ensemble dance work, DANCING WITH THE UNIVERSE, was nominated for a Dora for Outstanding performance. Her graphic novel, DANCING AFTER TEN, won the US Library Journal Award and was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award. Chong's advocacy for accessibility and inclusion continues in her work as an audio description consultant and weekly accessible yoga classes. The run of BLIND DATES is Blind Friendly and live-captioned; all shows are Relaxed Performances. 

BroadwayWorld talked to Chong about her experiences creating the show, why dating is such a good window into the human condition, and how the triathlete brings a spirit of adventure to her relationships.

BWW: Tell us little bit about the premise of your show, BLIND DATES, and what inspired you to write it.

CHONG: It's all about connection. These days, we have so many different issues arising in the world. And sometimes when there's too many messages, people actually get disconnected. So my show uses dating as a lens to talk about human connection. How do we truly understand what's important to us and our values, and how do we move forward from there? I take people from indoor dating to outdoor dating to doing athletic things and dating, to coming back to be quiet and quietly dating. There are so many representations in dating and human connections. These are all real-life experiences coming from my personal stories. From there, I talk about connection and how to really understand human connection and who we are as people.

BWW: What made you choose dating as your lens to view connection?

CHONG: Sometimes when we have new connections through dates, it can be very fast. We met the person one time, maybe three months ago. Sometimes people introduce a person to you. Sometimes you go on a dating app and you find these people. Each scenario and the connectivity and how juicy it is are so different from person to person, but what is in common is, when we share the airtime and share our presence with someone, it makes an impact on the other person, and they made an impact in our life. And that is my entry point for writing this show, because each person I met, they're all so unique.
And I always have something to take away. Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, it makes me reflect on what I was doing.

BWW: When it comes to dating, there's always a lot of possibility involved, and a lot of hope. We're always hoping that maybe it won't just be one date. Maybe it'll turn into something more. Maybe you'll really find a point of deep connection with another person.

CHONG: Sometimes the connection is deep, sometimes it's superficial, but it's still a connection. When people give you their time and energy, it's still connection, but it's up to us how we see it. It's receptive. We get rejected and we take it personally, we get very distraught and then we lose self-esteem and we lose confidence. But my goal is to encourage everybody. 

That does happen. It happens to me too. I'm in the same boat. I get rejected and I feel grim. But the thing is, it helped me understand a little bit about where I was at in my life, in my own personal journey as a person, not just as a date, but as a person, what I was going through. And then I can become lighter when I understand what I had to learn from that person or learn from the experience. I become lighter and then I understand what I have to do to move forward. If each time, we just get defeated and we take it too personally, then we get hurt. Instead, by calming down and having self-awareness and understanding of who we are, we can move forward. Because we all bring so many unique gifts to the world. Each person brings a different quality to our life.

BWW: During the pandemic, you had another autobiographical show as part of the Next Stage Festival, THE SUNGLASSES MONOLOGUE. What were some of the challenges and rewards of that piece, and what did you learn from that show to contribute to this one?

CHONG: Change or growth for me is momentum, putting myself out there. Doing one collaboration at a time. Before THE SUNGLASSES MONOLOGUE was a digital show, it was a live show. After that, I actually did a dance theatre production, so it was dancing and monologue. I was dancing with 11 dancers on stage. The journey was marking my place as a dancer. How do I move with an ensemble? How do I jump into someone's arms and then fall down together and then tumble? How do I stand up? How do I walk forward without losing my placement on stage? For each show, there is a team of very different people. I start over again from ground zero, getting to know my people, getting to know their work ethic, their work style. So that takes a lot of conversation with the team. 

It takes a lot of patience for people to understand my needs. I have a vision impairment and I'm pretty blind and I can't see anything at all. So to vocalize my needs is different from other people vocalizing their needs as an actor. It's not a given that they understand right away. So sometimes it takes some persuasive power or patience to get everybody on the same page. So even just the process of rehearsals, bringing it from script to the stage, it's living art and truly living it every day.

I'm very excited to grow with my ensemble this time at Theatre Passe Muraille. Each time I'm observing myself, my growth is stretching myself in all different directions.

BWW: You were nominated for a Dora for DANCING WITH THE UNIVERSE. What do you think made that piece so successful? What resonated with people?

CHONG: It's a lot of movement, a lot to watch. Even though I can't see, I see the piece in my inner eye; I understand the placement of each dancer. What are they trying to display? Sometimes they are grocery racks. They played grocery store canned food. Sometimes they were actually moving my body. It was so fulfilling to make visible art from the body with that representation of objects and interaction. The flow of the body was very moving. Secondly, we have a spatial representation of animation behind me, which I drew with my team. They put all the drawings together in an animation after I drew it. I was also interacting with a puppet on stage. So every part of that show was so interesting and stunning to look at. The story was a human story. It's a real person's story, with a real person reliving the story, putting all the emotions back out in the world. And going through that is tremendous. It's not just the body dancing, but the emotion of moving and flying.

BWW: As a graphic novelist, are you incorporating any of your work into this piece? 

CHONG: This piece is completely different once again. As an entertainer, as a theater creator, I try to stretch myself every time I do a different show. This show is focusing on acting and character development. It's a one-woman show, but I also play all my dates, all my friends, all the people who gave me advice. It's lively because I get to be them. I walk in my dates' shoes. It's fun as well because I don't know them anymore. A lot of these dates, we broke up and I haven't seen them and they might never see me again; or if they see me, it will be on stage. I never know who will show up. If they do, they'll see that my life continues. It's not up to the date to make my choice. It's up to me to make my choice how I would feel about it afterwards.

BWW: Could you tell us a little bit about the compositions you've written for the show?

CHONG: I write music and my mediums are ukulele and piano. My lyrics support the contents of my show. Each of my songs is like a character on stage. One song is about a woman nursing a drink while singing her heart away about the blues in her life. Another is about going back home and reflecting on letting people go. Another song, called "Lily Pad," I wrote when I was quite a bit younger volunteering at a summer camp for people who are blind. I didn't even know how to support myself, but I was stretching myself to support others in a journey of finding myself and finding my strengths and finding what I can contribute to the world. I wrote a song about about going out and guys asking me for a phone number. And what do I do about it? 

I was at Value Village and I saw this t-shirt that said "self-made men." And I thought, if no one made a t-shirt for me, I'm going to make a song about this self-made woman. One more song is called "When We Met," about meeting someone I can click with, who understands my stresses in life. It's about that slow, tender love. Someone holding your focus. Each song represents a different mental state and different kind of love.

BWW: You're also a triathlete, and you incorporate some stories about that into the show.

CHONG: Definitely. So first, though, it's not about mobility or blindness at all. It's really about human connection and self-growth, and how to be present for someone and with yourself. I'm trying to go out to do a sport, but I have to teach my dates how to do it with me to enjoy myself. So there's a learning moment for the date. If they don't want to learn how to do the sport with me, then the date will be over before I even begin. When the people are enthusiastic about joining me, and they are for learning, then I can see the potential in the date. They want to grow with me, not just doing a sport, but doing it successfully with me so they don't leave me behind. It's definitely an educational moment for me. And so my date, they have to be up for it. My successful dates, they're the kind of person that thinks outside the box and they're willing to live it up for themselves and for me. It's an activity, but it also teaches you a lot about what sort of person this other person is.

It's not easy. Sometimes I get that people are uncomfortable with the idea of it, which is just human nature, but if the person sticks with it and if they're willing to learn with me, that's a very good start. Because I am all about learning and growth. So if they're in for the long haul, they definitely need to be a learner, a grower, and a partner with me. And I actually encourage everybody to give their potential partner a challenge as a date idea to see whether they're up for learning and growing together.

BWW: The purpose of us living our lives is to learn lessons and grow.

CHONG: Sometimes people will see the same things happening in their lives in similar situations because they haven't moved past some hurdles. If they don't have the awareness to understand what the hurdle was, they will repeat the same scenario and get stuck if they don't take responsibility. But there is no need. Everything is under our control; people just might not realize it yet.

BWW: In your description, you say that at times there are moments in the show that are a little unbelievable. What do you mean by that?  

CHONG: I definitely challenged my team to back me up, and I challenged my director. I challenge my audience to deep dive with me. But my kind of going out is to take people to go kayaking. Hiking. If they take a look at me and see I use a mobility device, they might be like, "what the heck?" I just want to show them who I am. So these are the things that are important to me: to move my body, to stand. To eat, to hike, to climb, to swim, to pedal. Those are unbelievable moments. First of all, they're like, how are you going to do it? Let alone going on a date. So they will have to come into the theater and experience it with me. Then I'll show them! A lot of stuff that people have said to me is also quite unbelievable. My team had reactions about it. 

Each night there will be elements that are changeable, and I challenged myself with that too. If people challenge me, I challenge them back.

BWW: Is there anything that I didn't ask you about the show that you want to share?

CHONG: It's a very hopeful piece. If we are willing to take responsibility for ourselves, because we all bring so much in this world--if we can all step forward and not let things get too personal, and be willing to be brave, take responsibility for our emotions, then we can move forward together. In a bigger sense, as a society. As people who love to date, as people who love. 

It's a very hopeful place here on this earth.

To post a comment, you must register and login.