Down At DAFF, Apphia Campbell's Nina Simone

27/5/2013

Will it or won’t it? That’s the dreaded question when holding any outdoor event. Google forecasted rain for the weekend, but as the search engine site barely works in China these days, thankfully that too was a message which didn’t get through to the skies above.

Lezil and I arriving at DAFF 2013.

Plus, Lezil and I were to embark on our longest bike journey yet – a 18 kilometres round trip from our home to The Wharf right beside Shanghai’s Huangpu River. DAFF (Design Art & Fashion Fair) was holding its spring 2013 event. The bi-annual weekend gathering is where many of Shanghai’s expat creative enterprises set up shop to promote, sell, network and generally have a good time. It was considerably overcast but at the least the temperature was in the high 20s making it the ideal T-shirt wearing day.

Having given our legs a good 35 minute work-out, we secured our bikes by the Cool Docks railings and walked the one block to where we could hear music being pumped out by one of the DAFF DJs. The distinctive fluorescent pink of DAFF’s logo was at eye level everywhere you looked.

Over 80 different brands across a number of industries – fashion, food, hair, interior design, art – all lined the edges of the normally-disused river dock area. The city’s impressive skyscrapers just on the other side in Pudong were deceptively close, including the fast-growing Shanghai Tower. Slated to be finished in 2014, it will be the tallest in China (632 metres) and will be the second tallest in the world after the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

Meanwhile down at sea level, we went for a wander throughout the entire DAFF grounds. We stopped by a number of unique boutique stalls, many of which had one-of-a-kind designs. One in particular caught my attention and that was of Spaniard Celia Bernardo whose bold use of different cultural prints was eye-catching indeed. Her Celia B range had a number of custom-made items of clothing especially using material designs from different parts of Africa.

Two tall skyscrapers (left) the new Shanghai Tower, (right) the Shanghai World Financial Center.

Lezil by the Celia B fashion stall.

Playroom co-founders (left to right), girlfriend/boyfriend CiCi and Andrew.

Stopping at another table, I read the slogan “Come play with us” alongside the company’s logo Playroom which used hand cuffs for the double “o” in “room”. It took me a split second to register what the angle was which turned out to be products for sexual wellness and pleasure. This caught my curiosity. Playroom co-founder Andrew McGregor wandered over to where Lezil and I were standing. Originally from Australia, he told us he had moved from New York with his Chinese-American girlfriend CiCi to set up shop in Shanghai six months ago. I asked him how did it work, marketing sex-products in a seemingly conservative country like China?

According to McGregor, the industry for ‘intimate lifestyle products’ (as it’s often referred to as) in China is now worth a staggering $15 billion US Dollars a year. You only have to look on China’s biggest online retailer Taobao to see the huge variety on offer. But, Andrew said, where they (Playroom) differ is not only offering high-quality imported products but also enlightening their customers on healthy wellbeing when it comes to sexual practises.

By now we had pretty much passed through all the vendors and had arrived at the fair end of the dock to where the food stands were. Why is it that one moment you are not hungry, but the mere whiff of sizzling outdoor food being cooked suddenly sets off hunger pangs? You could literally country-hop with cuisine from all corners of the globe on offer. We eventually settled for Haya’s Israeli Cuisine where we wolfed down a tasty lamb kebab of which I generously spread some kicking chilli sauce on. Owner Tzachi (from Israel) was manning the stall and he was surprised when I told him that we had never come across his restaurant before which he said he had been running in Shanghai now for seven years. Handing over my Israeli lamb kebab, he gave us a discount voucher to come and visit his eatery located downtown.

Just before leaving DAFF, we dropped by our friends at Studio Ebony who were busy readying their models for a fashion hair walk around the event.

Holding my lamb kebab alongside Haya's Israeli food owner Tzachi and one of his staff members.

Lezil chatting with Bryonie, co-founder of Studio Ebony.

They had a number of hair products and actual hair pieces out on display to promote their services for African/Caribbean community residing in Shanghai. And of course, their invited hair stylist from the US (Ms Mikko) was in her element as she jazzed up various hair dos as she only knows how.

Biking back to our home, we had a quick turn around and we were soon cycling up town to a little complex known as Anken Green.

It’s a converted six-floor building which now houses a number of upstart and established enterprises. Right at the top there’s an endearing rooftop area with a large-sized vegetable garden, outdoor decking and a renovated hall. The latter was the setting for the much-advertised and much-talked about play Black Is The Color Of My Voice.

The one-woman show is performed and written by American Apphia Campbell who has been working on the concept for several years but only really sat down since last September to piece together, what has to be said, something that has become a very hot topic today. An official movie of Nina Simone’s life is in the works with Latina Black actress Zoe Saldaña (Avatar/Pirates of the Caribbean) cast as the lead role. In the US it has caused all sorts of controversy not least because of Zoe’s apparent unlikeness (appearance-wise) to the late great Jazz singer, but also because of the lengths the movie’s producers have gone to adapt her look adding in a reported larger nose.

Going up the elevator at Anken Green to see the play 'Black is the Color of my Voice'.

Front row seats with our good buddy Deji!

No adversity was felt in Shanghai to the staging of Nina’s life story where we sat with our good friend Deji right on the front row of that cosy converted rooftop theatre. We were to witness Nina Simone’s life according to its script creator Apphia Campbell. The story focuses on ‘Mena Bordeaux’, a fictional character created by Apphia and loosely based around Simone’s journey. The first half was an exquisite display of Campbell’s uncanny way of playing several characters where Mena ends up in Liberia (West Africa) as she locks herself in a room, facing her past demons whilst yearning to free her future-self.

She reminisces about her late father and mother, her times at Church and the preacher’s messages. Growing up as a young black girl with an exceptional piano-playing talent soon began to open her eyes towards the prejudice that existed because of the color of her skin. Apphia portrayed each character in such a defined way that you soon forgot it was just her up there. And this wasn’t just a play full of dialogue but, pulling out her secret weapon, Apphia peppered her performance with various musical numbers, again inspired by songs from Nina Simone’s collection.

Apphia Campbell in full swing as Mena Bordeaux.

Performing "I Put a Spell On You".

Her haunting delivery of “I Put A Spell On You” was spine-tingling as she stood in a long purple dress, iconic green head wrap and a single spot-light where you could almost feel Nina Simone’s very spirit in that room. All around me, I could hear nothing but praise for Apphia’s work during the short 10 minute interval as people took time to digest the vibrant story-telling performance of the first half.

Up until then, the play had focused primarily on Mena’s personal and artistic journey. Whereas the second half highlighted more her involvement with the American Civil Rights movement. There was an excellent sound insert of various radio reports featuring speeches from the likes of Dr Martin Luther King and President John F. Kennedy.

Apphia dug deep as she acted out Mena’s despair and anger towards the death of Dr King and the inequality that ostracized African Americans during that time. None one in the audience moved an inch. The realness of the scene was simply sublime.

The play reached its rightful crescendo with the number “Feeling Good” seeing Mena belting out the hit song, arms extended wide towards her adoring fans. The figurative curtain fell. The end. What a ride. I had seen Apphia act in last year’s Blue Lane Productions of No Exit. And clearly, she stepped up what was already then, an impressive performance. There’s one more weekend showing in Shanghai before she takes the whole thing over to the Midtown International Theatre Festival in New York during the summer. All-singing, all-acting, all-writing the question begs, what’s the next story to have Apphia’s magical theatrical touch?