The Three Bowls Co-op

Jiayun ZHUANG ([email protected]) is a theatremaker, scholar, and educator with an international presence in China, Europe, and the United States. She has worked extensively as a playwright, concept developer, and dramaturg, with her works featured at renowned venues and festivals worldwide, including FESTIVAL/TOKYO, Zürcher Theater Spektakel, Festival d'Automne à Paris, Kunstfest Weimar, Schaubühne’s Festival Internationale Neue Dramatik, and the Hong Kong International Black Box Festival. She has worked at the Akademie für Theater und Digitalität, Harvard University’s CAMLab, and the PlayMakers Repertory Company. She has also taught in the Department of Dramatic Art at UNC-Chapel Hill and at the Beijing Dance Academy. Additionally, she serves as a mentor and jury member for the China Dancers Association’s Young Choreographers’ Project.

Fan Jiang ([email protected]) is a choreographer, director, and performer who graduated from the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Since 2017, she has been a collaborating artist with the Shanghai International Dance Center. Her work focuses on exploring narrative possibilities and interdisciplinary approaches within dance theatre. Her dance theatre piece Folded Shadows earned her the Shanghai ONE Drama Award in 2015. As an independent theatre maker, Fan has collaborated with various organizations, including the Living Dance Studio, the Shanghai-based NIAO Collective, the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, the Czech Republic’s Archa Theater, and the Zagreb Dance Center. Her recent works include One Person’s War (2008, 2010), Rhapsody of the Apocalypse (2012), Folded Shadows 1.0/2.0/3.0" (2014-2016), and Dining Table (2016).Since the summer of 2014, Jiayun and Fan have collaborated and, in 2017, they co-founded The Three Bowls Co-op. This group is committed to an open and interdisciplinary creative approach that blurs the boundaries between dance and theatre, exploring narrative integration across various media while bringing current social issues, particularly women’s topics, to the forefront of their performances.

Variations of Memory (2024)
Creation, Playwriting: Jiayun ZHUANG
Creation, Direction: Fan JIANG
Choreography, Performance: Shanghai Dance Academy
Music: Yi WANG (EAU)
Light Design: Yilan LIUThe Variations of Memory (2024) is a dance theatre piece created in collaboration between The Three Bowls Co-op and the 2024 graduating Choreography class of Shanghai Dance Academy. Drawing inspiration from Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, the work employs a devised theatre approach, weaving and transforming each choreographer’s reflections on memory and oblivion into the fabric of Kundera’s narrative.

A Flexitarian (2022)

A Flexitarian (2022)
Direction, Performance: Fan JIANG
Playwriting: Jiayun ZHUANG
Music: Liiii & Feng
Light Design: Yilan LIUA Flexitarian (2022) follows the story of Douzi, a solitary soul navigating life in Shanghai. At a pivotal moment marked by newfound material independence and the emotional void of divorce, she embarks on a quest for spiritual liberation—one that is diverse, fresh, and previously elusive. Both the protagonist and narrator, Douzi traverses different mediums and periods, reflecting on and evoking memories of various women who embody her experiences. These include women who face and sometimes internalize transactional dynamics in various aspects of their lives, women labeled as “middle-aged” who must continually challenge societal prejudices and self-doubt, and women grappling with the delicate balance of freedom, responsibility, family, and friendship. A Flexitarian blends truth with humor, while its core is a low, resonant roar against the mundane, the process of aging, emotional trauma, and the myriad challenges women encounter.

Loading, Please Wait... (2021)

Loading, Please Wait... (2021)
Direction, Performance: Fan JIANG
Playwriting: Jiayun ZHUANG, Xueyun ZHAO
Music: A Ming
Stage Design: Li SHENThe player, Birdie, has just turned thirty, with her skills somewhere between a novice and an expert. She’s played games where no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t win, and others where victory came effortlessly. She tirelessly searches, fights, and accumulates, repeatedly taking on the same roles, simulating life and death over and over, always chasing that fresh thrill. Every time she sees the words "Loading, please wait," her adrenaline surges: "Let me try again—this time, I’m sure I’ll beat it."

Web Traffic (2017/2018)
Creation, Direction, Performance: Fan JIANG
Creation, Playwriting: Jiayun ZHUANG
Light Design: Edwin van Steenbergen
Music: A MingThe host of a livestreaming show, along with her production team, is navigating the challenges of a rapidly evolving industry. They are facing mounting pressure from tightening government regulations on content, increasing demands from livestreaming platforms for higher web traffic, and rising expectations from users for more interactive and theatrical experiences.Web Traffic looks at the peculiar tastes that arise from the consumption of countless online, and often gendered, spectacles. The show also delves into China's "boredom economy"—an economy driven by young people's pervasive sense of existential disuse. This economy thrives on the promotion of a lifestyle marked by boredom, capturing a non-fulfilling yet undeniably real aspect of modern existence.

What's Next?

The Three Bowls Co-op's upcoming dance theatre piece is inspired by South Korean author HAN Kang’s The Vegetarian, a feminist revolt against conformity and patriarchy, which won the 2016 International Booker Prize.

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