Sensing Adjacency – Zelia ZZ TAN
【Synopsis】
Zelia’s experimental creation aimed to explore the relationships between dancer and their avatar. She researched motion capture (mocap) dance as the form of performance. The work shared the process where one senses the loss of information. The dancer faced a distrust of data, but s/he/it discovers new connections from multiple sensors.
A sensor, aka transducer, is a device that produces an output signal for sensing a physical phenomenon. There are many types of sensors. Most of the mocap suits use the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), which collects fluctuations, rotation, pressure, and other trends to a hub. The computing system converts the data to trigger the avatar to move into virtual environment.
In the rehearsal, the dancer interpreted different avatars, observing the embodied feedback. One of the choreographic tasks was to study how the axis of the body is connected to animation, allowing the computer system to calculate the distance between the avatar’s crotch and the ground. The choreographer tried to solve the technical problem of sinking and discovering the avatar’s mode of expressions. The creators involved in this production learned new approaches to collaboration.
To be continued……
【Creative Team】
Choreography, Performance & Multimedia Design: Zelia ZZ TAN
Avatar Design: Guido STUCH
Sound Design: Simon HO
Costume Design: Perpetua IP
Director, Cinematographer & Editor: Wilfred WONG
Special Thanks: School of Dance, The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Cie Gilles JOBIN
Boiling Bo – Bobo LAI X Terry TSANG
【Choreographer’s Note】
A worsened Omicron outbreak has forced us to cancel the live performance, and record it as a video. Through the camera, I can see whether I rely on my spouse for everything, and I learn how to temporarily separate from him. Because we don’t know when we will die, I get to think of life as when and at what time I should rely on my spouse.
【Creative Team】
Concept, Choreographer, Costume Design & Cinematographer: Bobo LAI, Terry TSANG
Performer: Pink Balloon
Director, Cinematographer & Editor: Wilfred WONG
Special Thanks: Yuri NG, Melissa LEUNG, Tomas TSE, Ronnie LAM, David LOK
The study of Cat – From Passive to Active? – Eric KWONG X Justyne LI
【Creator’s Note】
I am not a choreographer, I am a dancer. Everything begins with the cat. This is incomplete, and cannot be completed. I will keep developing.
【Creative Team】
Concept & Performed by: Eric KWONG
Research Facilitator: Justyne LI
Director, Cinematographer & Editor: Michael TANG
Gaffer & Camera Assistant: Ken MOK
Location Sound Mixer & Sound Designer: Raven CHIU
Rebug: working in progress – Shirley LOK / Ying Ching CHEN
【Choreographer’s Note】
Motivation for creation: Funny, that’s it!
Insects are unique, but not extraordinary. Teamwork is important to making dream works. I care the most about how this production can connect you and me. When I was young, I like puppets because they are magical. People who learn to better understand themselves also learn to better understand others. The observation of others will never end, every day is a new start. Never expect, it’s better to feel surprised than to feel disappointed.
【Creative Team】
Choreographed & Performed by: Shirley LOK
Putter Designer/Puttereer: Ying Ching CHEN
Director, Cinematographer & Editor: Wilfred WONG
Cinematographer: Shing Hei YEUNG
Special Thanks: Bruce WONG, Chung Ying WONG
Behind me 1 – Peggy LAM
【Choreographer’s Note】
Grateful to have self-communication.
Thanks for having close friends who would like to talk, share, and argue with me.
We cannot control everything, but we can choose how to respond.
At this moment, just do whatever you want to, as one day tomorrow won’t be there.
All the best.
【Creative Team】
Concept, Choreographed & Performed by: Peggy LAM
Director, Cinematographer & Editor: Michael TANG
Gaffer & Camera Assistant: Sound Designer: Raven CHIU
Colorist: Kinglun YEUNG
Special Thanks: Kaki LEE, Melissa LEUNG, Tomas, Jess, Linda, Grace mama, 阿良
Decomposer – Valueless – Simpson YAU X Justyne LI
【Creator’s Note】
Thanks for trusting me, and accepting me as an “useless” dancer. I could rediscover self value, to learn, to self-reflect, to move forward, and to decompose all these things and transform into nutrients. Words are not the best way to express, let’s focus on the body, and continue our journey.
【Creative Team】
Concept& Performed by: Simpson YAU
Research Facilitator: Justyne LI
Director, Cinematographer & Editor: Michael TANG
Gaffer Camera Assistant: Ken MOK
Sound Designer: Raven CHIU
The Problematic Workout – LEE Ka Hei
【Synopsis】
The Problematic Workout is inspired by popular online workout videos, where the topless trainers with tight shorts share their workouts from some ambiguous camera angles. And they get a lot of subscribers and positive comments. Personally speaking, it is objectification of body in return for something (fame, subscribers, profit, attention, etc.), which is becoming acceptable as observed from those positive comments. The Problematic Workout is to display this phenomenon and invite your perceptions on and reactions with masculine images.
【Artist’s Statement】
The Problematic Workout comes from the observations on the online workout videos in social media. For truly reflecting how the “performers” objectify themselves, I am glad to have Willson in this work. Willson is a social media user with experiences in sharing his body shapes online. In the absence of performance experience, what Willson “performs” is basically the authentic reactions when he is doing the exercises and being watched.
【Creative Team】
Concept: LEE Ka Hei
Performance: Willson
Composer: Larry SHUEN
Special Thanks: CHAN Wai Lok
Chicken Blood – Alberto GEROSA X FENG Jingyi
【Synopsis】An aesthetic reinterpretation of the contemporary ritual and folk therapy exercise ‘Chicken Blood’, a common practice in China among migrant workers of different regions and professions. Millions of migrant workers perform it daily across China, mainly women.
Our ethnographic art project re-interprets this practice, identifying it as the most important emerging Chinese choreographic style of the second half of the 20th century.
Experiencing a Chicken Blood ritual is very powerful and instills a belief in the practitioner and the attendees alike. “Endure, resist, persist, go forward”: each audience finds their own space in this cathartic, atavic expression of women’s power.
As in a shamanic drum possession ritual, the act progresses through repetition and higher intensity, the performer reaches a loss of senses, embodying the multitude of migrant workers to exhaustion, referencing the final sacrificial solo of 1913 Rite Of Spring.
Ridding of this practice from its secular capitalist-infused armor, we intend to trace the lyricism of its movements back to its rural healing origins among ethnic minorities, reconnecting it to the nomadic root of dance in North-Eastern Asia, where early shamanic practices around lake Baikal have appeared.
As the use of chicken blood is recurrent in Chinese, Haitian, Indonesian and Mediterranean animist religions just to name a few, our project ties a knot with the heritage of the shamanic origins of early drum dance.
【Creative Team】
Concept & Choreographed by: Alberto GEROSA
Performed by: FENG Jingyi (Artists appear courtesy of Hong Kong Ballet)
Director, Cinematographer & Editor: Michael TANG
Second Camera: NG Wai Ho
Sound Mixer: Raven CHIU