# A Rehearsal Record of Howlers on the Rooftop: When the Documentarian Steps onto the Stage
Beginning with Li Chen's performer-training account, this essay considers changing positions between observation, participation and writing: walking with closed eyes, an imagined cup of water and the documentarian's own experience.
P4 Theater website essay · 2026-09-07
## A viewpoint that begins beside a stove
Li Chen's *Am I a Journalist? (3) | Performer Training Record for Howlers on the Rooftop* begins with a stove, an upholstered chair, music and performers' bodies. She is watching, but is not a camera without a position. Cold, warmth, where she sits and the sounds she hears all participate in her observation. Published on 5 January 2021, the text records a training session as the public performance approached. Its publication date cannot simply be treated as the date of the training.[1](#howler)
A December 2020 announcement for the same project scheduled a public performance for 2 January of the following year. Reading the announcement alongside the account shows that archival time does not always follow the order in which things happened. Understanding how a work was prepared often requires working backwards from a publication date after the performance to an earlier rehearsal experience.[2](#howleropen)
## From observing others to dealing with one's own body
The turning point in the account is clear. Director Jinzi invites everyone onto the stage to train, and Li Chen joins in. The exercise asks them to remain active with their eyes closed while holding an imaginary cup of water without spilling it. Before this, she describes others. Afterwards, she must deal with her own movement, direction and ways of encountering other people.[1](#howler)
This change makes the record more than an account of what performers did. Its writer has to describe how she moves from hesitation into experience and, with less visual information, relies on sound, touch and the feel of the ground. She does not stand outside and bring back a complete event. From within the event, she brings back a limited, particular experience. Limited does not mean worthless: it lets readers locate the position from which these judgments arise.
## How can a cup without water bring about a relationship?
The cup is an imaginary prop, but the requirement not to spill water gives it a practical constraint on action. The account goes on to describe meeting another person walking with closed eyes, and responses concerning spilt water and whether half a cup can be shared. An object that is not physically there becomes a reason for two people to attend to each other and negotiate their actions.[1](#howler)
This offers a concrete way of understanding theatrical rules. A prop need not appear as a physical object, and rules need not require complex technology. If participants sustain it together through their actions, it can organise distance and communication. The relationship in the text, however, is Li Chen's account of her experience at the time. It does not establish that all participants felt the same thing, still less that the exercise is a universally effective psychological intervention.
## How to keep writing when observation has changed
The article moves from descriptions of an everyday setting into poetic accounts of bodily sensation. This stylistic shift can be understood as a change in recording that follows a change of position: from seeing others act to finding language for one's own perception. It also asks readers to distinguish the training arrangements that can be checked from the experience the author expresses through metaphor.[1](#howler)
Who initiates the training and what the exercise requires, for example, are matters directly stated in the record. How darkness is experienced and how an encounter is understood belong to the author's personal expression. Reading both carefully preserves more of the work's complexity than reducing the entire article to a conclusion that a training session made people feel connected.
## Why the documentarian's involvement deserves to remain
P4's ten-year retrospective includes performers, audience members, photographers and writers among its participants. This training account for *Howlers on the Rooftop* provides an identifiable example: at a particular moment, an observer becomes a participant and writes that change into the record.[3](#ten)[1](#howler)
It reminds later researchers that a rehearsal archive is more than an instruction manual behind a finished product. Where an observer stands, when they join in and how they continue describing after joining can all become material for understanding a work. Preserving the documentarian's credit also preserves a position that no other viewpoint can fully replace.
## Sources and original texts
1. [Am I a Journalist? (3) | Performer Training Record for Howlers on the Rooftop](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2021/2021-01-05-我是不是一个记者-3-天台上的嚎叫者-演员训练记录-a777d179d6/) — Li Chen, 2021-01-05
2. [2 January! Public Performance of the p4U Project Howlers on the Rooftop!](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2020/2020-12-23-1月2日-p4U计划-天台上的嚎叫者-公演-8b8a4feb70/) — zaoyi, 2020-12-23
3. [P4 Theater, Ten Years](https://p4theater.cn/articles/2025/2025-03-08-p4剧场-十年-7455016cd1/) — He Fa, 2025-03-08
An essay for the P4 Theater website, based on public archives. Its analysis is not presented as the direct speech of He Fa or other participants; historical source texts retain their own credits and dates.
Chinese webpage: https://p4theater.cn/knowledge/howler-observer-participant/