• News / About
  • Upcoming project
  • Deep Ecologies
  • Exit for Chongqing 活路兒
  • War of Perception 感知戰爭
  • Sad Leaders 傷心領導
  • Sad Leaders in space
  • Phoenix Desires 慾火風
  • Gau Wu Oi Ming 鳩嗚哀鳴
  • Anat's Party
  • un/folding in
  • Writing
  • Press
  • CV
  • Contact
  • News / About
  • Upcoming project
  • Deep Ecologies
  • Exit for Chongqing 活路兒
  • War of Perception 感知戰爭
  • Sad Leaders 傷心領導
  • Sad Leaders in space
  • Phoenix Desires 慾火風
  • Gau Wu Oi Ming 鳩嗚哀鳴
  • Anat's Party
  • un/folding in
  • Writing
  • Press
  • CV
  • Contact

Sad Leaders 2018-20

Short read:

Sad Leaders is a five-minute performance where Margaret Thatcher, Chris Patten, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping perform mourning gestures to a pop soundtrack.


Long read:

Sad Leaders is a performance featuring four performers in handmade masks of known political figures. They move in exaggerated mourning gestures to a soundtrack. Across cultures, professional mourners are hired to perform mourning rituals for grieving families. Bearing the semblance of historical leaders, weight down by the wheels of history, are they mourning for past deeds or are they surrogate bodies for someone else’s grief?


Performed against a self-composed, two-part soundtrack, the first renders an infernal underworld where the masked performer get lost and languish in dark vibes; the second part takes a comical turn, the wayward soundbites are foregrounded by an upbeat backing track as if to summon the characters into a sort of awakening – one that leads them to get trapped and bemoan the turning of the wheel of history.


It is at once an exploration of exaggerated form of emotion, ideas of power, political puppetry and pathos, and how sympathy or empathy might be generated through gesture and affect, even for controversial figures. By placing figures of the bygone era in the present, displacing them from their usual public arena to a private mourning setting, gesturing to a part comical soundtrack, I hope this absurd juxtaposition and the play on time and space could create a space for reflection and contemplation.

Sad Leaders performance excerpt

Sad Leaders Performance at Slade Research Centre, 2019

    Sad leaders at Bloomsbury Theatre, 2020

    • Contact

    Copyright © 2021 - All Rights Reserved.

    Thank you for dropping by.

    This website uses cookies.

    We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.

    DeclineAccept