Crab Pro
It is the first and only performance art project in Spain formed exclusively by a group of young women of Chinese origin in Madrid. It began operations in 2018 and is based on four main components:
- The performance company Crab Pro.
- The educational and community space.
- Transdisciplinary collaborations.
- The research project.
From 2018 to the present, we have focused on creating collective performances, developing a process of grouping and sharing in which we have built the collective identity of young women of Chinese origin in Madrid. This identity takes root and grows like a tree with multiple roots.
Through our collective performances:
- We show the heterogeneity and contemporaneity of young Chinese women in Madrid.
- We create a channel for self-expression and self-definition.
- We explore a process of “becoming,” as a constant dialogue between individuality and collectivity.
- We try to break away from the “Western standard” of performance art and aesthetic language.
- We invent new methods, dynamics and meanings in collective and performative creation.
Our social identity as young Chinese women in Madrid defines us as an exclusive, non-mixed group. In this sense, we are a homogeneous collective, although our members' profiles are very diverse.
We are: Xirou Xiao (director), Shishi Zhu, Liulian (Bixia Xu), Zhihan Chen, Jiaying Li, Fengfan Yang and Wanru Li.
“The first person to eat crab” / 第一个吃螃蟹的人 is a Chinese saying that refers to someone who is very brave and daring, who isn't afraid to try new, unknown, or difficult things. That's why we define ourselves as “The first Chinese girls to eat crabs” / 第一群吃螃蟹的中国女孩, because what we do is completely new in Spain. We are brave, bold, and, why not say it, a little crazy.
Continue reading
We are fearless in creating, fearless in growing.
We are tough on the outside; soft on the inside. We value our strength as warriors, we empower our courage. At the same time, we recognize and value our tender side: we connect with vulnerability, pain, and our emotional side.
We are a female group, not a feminist one. Because we understand femininity beyond the feminist claim from a Western perspective: we perceive it and embrace it from a non-Western perspective.
We are a stone thrown into the water, it produces resonances…
We are: What does it mean to be a young Chinese woman in Spain?
We are: What does it mean to be? What does it mean to shed this imposed identity? What do you want to tell the world?
We are: Where are you from? Why did you come to Spain?
We're here: What are you doing at home during lockdown? How can we communicate without physical contact?
We are: How can we co-create from the heterogeneity and with the great diversity (personal and professional) of the Chinese diaspora in Spain through collective performance art?
We are: How can we show and convey these invisible realities about the lack of security (violence and racism) of the Chinese community in Madrid (bazaars and grocery stores) through our performance?
We are: How do we create a performance for ourselves as a closing and a celebration?
We are a doctoral research project, based on the arts and performative practices.
We are a creative community, a benchmark for the Chinese diaspora in Spain.
We are growing together.
Performances Pro Crab collectives
I don't give a damn (2018-2019)
Young Art Room, CAM, Madrid.
It was a training process of community creation based on actions and conversations that made visible the needs, concerns and worries of the young Chinese women from the performance.
Gallery
I don't give a Crab (2019)
Artist Residency Center, Matadero Madrid.
Closing of 我们, 我们 / wŏmen wŏmen, 1st Meeting of the Chinese Diaspora in Spain.
The intentional pursuit of performativity during the performance was our possible response for reflection. What would happen if we shed this imposed identity? Why and for what purpose do we have to constantly deal with this imposed identity?
Gallery
I don't give a damn (2019)
Puerta del Sol, organized by the SOS Madrid Anti-Ravist Festival.
Due to the context of the festival, our central theme (What do you want to say to the world?) was inspired by anti-racism. It was also the first time we had done a performance collective in a public space; therefore, How could we play with its elements and conditions? This was one of the components and the main challenge when designing our performance.
Gallery
MAD (2020)
Artist Residency Center, Matadero Madrid. Closing ceremony of 我们, 我们 / wŏmen wŏmen, 1st Meeting of the Chinese Diaspora in Spain.
The pandemic situation was very present and overwhelming for each of us on a personal and social level. It was almost essential to deny or not talk about this topic during our first reunion as a group and with the audience. So, we all decided that this time in our piece we would talk about our lives during the pandemic.
Gallery
Bié bibi, come baby (2021)
Artist Residency Center, Matadero Madrid.
It was the first co-creation of performance with the core group of artists from the Chinese diaspora. It was based on the very process of grouping and communing between these two groups of young people through getting to know each other and sharing our lives and memories. It was a search and a journey.
Gallery
Let's go to the Chinese (2022-2023)
This piece presented and reflected on the concerns for their safety among people in the Chinese community who own shops in Madrid, especially bazaars and grocery stores. We performed it several times in different contexts. It's the only piece of ours that has gone from tour outside of Madrid and is considered the most successful and recognized of Cangrejo Pro.
It should be noted that we did not create a theatrical production that could be repeated in different contexts, but rather we needed to rework this piece to provide an updated proposal, both in terms of external conditions (space, time, target audience, general context of the event, etc.) and internal issues (why and what does it mean for each of us, at this point in our lives, to address this topic and perform this piece again?).
Photographs: Laura C. Vela, Alan and Matadero Madrid (Estudio Perplejo). © Cangrejo Pro (Madrid, 2022).
Let's go to Chinese I Matadero Madrid, Madrid. 02-04-2022.
Where we celebrated the 2nd Meeting of the Chinese Diaspora in Spain. 家 Jia: Home away from home. How can we show this “silenced” reality in Spanish society through our collective performance? Who are they, apart from faces that may seem familiar? What else do we know about them? And the final question: why?
© Cangrejo Pro. Produced and edited by大米良(Da Mi Liang).
Let's go to Chinese II Santa Monica Art Center, Barcelona. 02-10-2022.
It was the first time the entire company had left Madrid. The ARTefACTe Performance Festival invited us to Barcelona, and we were all very excited. Plus, after six months without performing this piece, we were going to perform it on a Sunday morning in a public space: Barcelona's Rambla, at the entrance to the Santa Mónica Art Center.
We strengthened the core of our group, which is truly the most valuable part of ourselves and our connection to each other. And I'm increasingly confident in the "power of vulnerability."
Photographs: VIII Culture and Citizenship Meeting and Atoq. © Cangrejo Pro (Seville, 2022).
Let's go to Chinese III Royal Artillery Factory, Seville. 26-11-2022.
We were invited to do the performance in the context of the 8th Culture and Citizenship Meeting organized by the Ministry of Culture and Sport at the Royal Artillery Factory (Seville). It is a three-day gathering for cultural groups and artists of color from all over Spain.
We created a new part in a process of reconstruction and redefinition of the performance. Instead of acting out a single scene (previous times we did the whole scene), performance Imitating a grocery store, from a more "realistic" approach, we wanted to play with something more performative, using more "abstract" spaces. During the rehearsal, we all thought and discussed this new creation: Do we approach it from a more corporeal and less narrative perspective? Do we expand new spaces and create new dimensions?
Photographs: Alan and Antonio Molin. © Cangrejo Pro (Madrid, 2023).
Let's go to Chinese IV Costume Museum, Madrid. June 20, 2023
This piece returned to Madrid after a year. The Women's Institute (belonging to the Ministry of Equality) invited us to make this performance within the Cultural Agenda programming at the Costume Museum in Madrid.
This time we did it in an outdoor space (the museum plaza). One of the main challenges was that the venue was very large: What could we do to take advantage of the vastness of the space and not let it consume us? So, we started thinking and imagining how we could play within it. We had many possibilities from an aesthetic perspective, physical dimension, and meaning. In the end, some family members from Cangrejo Pro came to see us; their presence was significant to us because they were one of the reasons we created this work. In a way, this piece has legitimized their pain, because it's a form of reparation through art (what we're doing) and also allows us to reach viewers who aren't "regulars" in the field.
Photographs © Festival Feministaldia and Cangrejo Pro (Donosti, 2023).
Let's go to Chinese V. Pro Cangrejo Manifesto: Young Chinese Women in Spain. Tabakalera, Donosti, 02-12-2023.
The Feministaldia Festival invited us to do this performance. This manifesto is based on the collective performance by Cangrejo Pro, "Vamos al Chino" (Let's Go to China). With our own voices and our presence, we express the concerns, needs, worries, and emotions of the Chinese community, some of which remain silenced in Spanish society.
Crab Feast (2023)
Artist Residency Center, Matadero Madrid.
This piece was created in the context of the closing party for Liwai's residencies at the Matadero Madrid Artist Residency Center for 4 years (2019-2023).
It was the first time we did one performance Cangrejo Pro's self-referential collective. We look back and celebrate the six collective works created between 2018 and 2023. For the first time, we also shared the bonds of the Cangrejas with the public, which came to the forefront: we brought this invisible part ("behind the scenes") "on stage." It was a celebration, together with the public, of the closing of an era, a ritual of farewell and opening. It was a celebration of an uncertain and hopeful future; of the past, the present, and the future.
Gallery
Crab Tongue (2024)
Language Week of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, Autonomous University of Madrid.
Neighborhood Dramas: Usera (2024)
Pperformative presentation andat the María Guerrero Theater of the National Drama Center.
+Dramas It is a project by #Dramático that navigates between research and the stage, an open space to communicate with the public and explore the paths that turn an idea into an aesthetic experience. +Neighborhood dramas has offered an opportunity to experience the neighborhoods of Lavapiés, Usera, and Chueca, during which the general public, along with a group of performing arts professionals, have gone out to discover and document the stories of each neighborhood to break down the barriers that traditionally separate the public from theatrical creation. Our project Neighborhood Dramas: Usera We offered a wide range of stories, perspectives, and complexities, reflected on the language of the Chinese diaspora, savored memories, and explored the meeting points and streets of Usera.
Figure I (2025)
Cooltura Futura Festival – SOS Racism Madrid.
Figure is a new series of participatory performances by Cangrejo Pro in which we explore racial identity through silence, anonymity, and collective presence.
We asked ourselves: What if we erase the face and language, those fundamental parts of who we are? What if no one can speak, if the mask has to be kept on all the time? What if, instead of presenting something to be seen, we turn the entire performance into a fully participatory experience, a shared situation?
It's a risky, experimental, and evolving proposal, because we also seek to blur the boundaries between making and being in the living arts.
Exhibitions collective
Exhibition "Let's go to China"
With Crab Pro in the temporary exhibition “ZHŌNGGUÓ: The Country of the Center” at the National Museum of Anthropology. From January 27 to May 5, 2024.
Exhibition “I don't give a damn”
In the collective exhibition “Instagramer Sororities”, at the Sala Arte Joven, CAM in Madrid. From January 23 to March 17, 2019.
Educational spaces (workshop, talk and conference)
13-05-2024
Class: Crab Pro螃蟹计划 at the University of Barcelona.
16-11-2023
Conference: Crab Pro螃蟹计划 at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Complutense University of Madrid.
19-05-2023
Seminar: Artistic practices of the Chinese diaspora in Spain in the Cultural and Artistic Production Seminar of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona.
12-04-2023
Course: “Young Chinese Women and the performance “collective” in Other Contemporaries: Asia at the Reina Sofía Museum.
29-03-2023
Workshop: “Pro Crab. Performance “collective and anti-racist” in Educational Leisure Days with an Intercultural Perspective in Entreculturas, Valencia.
22-12-2022
Training day: “Art as a tool for (virtual) social justice” at CEA(R), Valencia.
30-11-2022
Conference: Crab Pro: Let's go to the Chinese in "Xarxes d'amistat i cures. Fílies i filacions pergenerar new realitats" at the Faculty of Geography and History of the University of Barcelona.
11-11-2022
Conference: Intercultural mediation with the Chinese diaspora in Spain in the Master's Degree in Cultural Heritage Management at the University of Zaragoza.
08-11-2022
Workshop and conference: The creation of performance collective and anti-racist, at the 14th Conference on Social Inclusion and Education in the Performing Arts, Valencia.
23-09-2022
Workshop and conference: Performance, intercultural mediation and youth and racialized community at the Artium Museum, Vitoria.
27-04-2022
Seminar and panel discussion: Creative processes and intercultural dialogues at the University of Barcelona.
24-03-2022
Workshop: “Research ⇋ Create. Investigating through performative tools” in La Parcería, organized by the collective Es(tu)yo.
27-11-2021
Workshop: “Creation of performance “collective and anti-racist” at La Parcería, aimed at racialized women and organized by the Anti-Racist Culture Cycle, SOS Racismo Madrid.
29-11-2021
Performative conference and seminar: East Asian Women's Studies at the Autonomous University of Madrid.
20-06-2020
Workshop: "Masquerade" in the Locus project, Madrid.
28-03-2019
Workshop: "Performance community” with university students from the La Salle University Center (Autonomous University of Madrid), in Professor Javier Abad's Community Art class.
Gallery
