1154 DAYS Will Make World Premiere at Arts House in the North Melbourne Town Hall

1154 Days is a gripping and unexpectedly revealing live performance by journalist Cheng Lei, premiering at Arts House in the North Melbourne Town Hall from 28 to 31 May.

Blending storytelling with live-cinematic theatre, 1154 Days transforms one woman’s real-life experience of detention in China into a powerful, thought-provoking and personal story for the stage.

In August 2020, while working in Beijing, Lei was called into work and met by state security officers. Within hours, she was blindfolded and taken to a secret location. What followed were 1154 days cut off from her children, family and the outside world.

For the first six months, Lei was held under Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location (RSDL), a system of detention defined by isolation, surveillance and silence. With limited insight into what occurs inside these facilities, 1154 Days offers a rare and vivid window into that hidden world.

Performed by Lei herself, the work reveals how the mind adapts, resists and even creates under pressure. In isolation, she built television programs in her head, devised memory games and found unexpected ways to connect with herself, others and even with her captors.

Moments of warmth and dark humour thread through the performance.

Directed by Emma Valente and Clyde White, 1154 Days uses multi-camera projection and live performance to place the audience inside these shifting worlds: a Beijing apartment where life suddenly fractures, the stark, controlled space of RSDL and a return to Melbourne, where freedom brings its own complexities.

“1154 Days asks what freedom really means and how easily it can be reshaped. This isn’t about recounting the suffering, it’s an exploration of something more universal,” said Lei.

“While in detention, small acts sustained us like sharing sunlight, singing on Christmas Day, crafting gifts from scraps, knocking coded messages through walls. These moments defied the system,” Lei explained.

Co-director Emma Valente describes the work as high-stakes documentary performance.

“This is not a re-enactment. It is lived testimony on stage. It reveals differences between systems of governance, the fragility of rights we take for granted and the resilience of the human spirit under pressure,” said Valente.

1154 Days reflects Arts House’s commitment to socially engaged Australian work. It centres lived experience with care and integrity, making space for complex political realities while foregrounding humanity and nuance.

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