Info
45-minutes solo dance piece / 360° full body-length & real-time video projection / surround sound sculpture
production: Anarchy Dance Theatre
concept & choreography: Jeff Chieh-hua Hsieh
software development, visual & sound design: Ultra Combos
sound design: Yannick Dauby
dramaturgy: River Lin
lighting design: We Do Group
custom design: Yu-teh Yang
technical initiator & operator: Grace Hsiang-ting Teng
soloist: Shao-ching Hung
tour management: AxE Arts Management
stage manager: Wen-han Yang
project Support: QA Ring
project mentor: Justine Beaujouan
project consultant: Kevin Cunningham
The concept of “Second Body” comes from the experience of driving cars. If I want to steer the wheel, to brake, to step on the gas, I don’t need to consciously think, yet the car can still go ahead, turn, and park at the correct spot according to my will. Moreover, when I am driving, I know how big my car is when I weave through narrow alleys, and I know where the four wheels are as the car proceeds in its tracks. Maneuvering a car is an experience done almost entirely out of reflex, without the need for the brain to actively think. This reminds me of the way we move our hands and feet, which move naturally without the need for us to think. When we are infants, we learn how to use our own bodies: we learn to stand on our feet, move, and run, and gradually learn to exercise our bodies as we will. We even learn how to use our bodies to the max in certain sports and exercises. In sum, the accumulation of knowledge, concepts and training allows us to use our bodies without conscious thought, making the use of our bodies an extension of the natural, physical body itself. The same happens when learning to drive, so that driving becomes a process achieved without thinking, with the car becoming an extension of the body.
The present work starts from establishing the presence of the body, while learning the structure of the natural body through setting up knowledge of the body itself. In addition, the knowledge of the structure of exercise is used to represent what we know of our own first bodies in the moment. Afterwards, a fully functional body starts to build up, then change the environment for itself. Gradually, the environment starts to change the body as well. The following section is a 360-full body-length projection entering the picture to create a non-natural second body, which creates an experience of movement distinct from the movements of the first body. We are re-learning this new body. Adaptation? Conflict? Do we during the conversion between these two produce new knowledge to define our bodies with the change in our viewing perspective? Furthermore, how does the second body replace the definition and existence of the first body in the process?
— Chieh-hua Hsieh
Anarchy Dance Theatre, founded in 2010 by architect and choreographer, Jeff Chieh-hua Hsieh, with focus on contemporary dance theatre style, aims to build up a unique dance vocabulary, training system and a platform that encompasses artist collaboration from all fields. “Anarchy” derives from series of dance pieces Hsieh created in discussion of authority structure in human society. Since motion-sensitive dance work, Seventh Sense, was created in 2011, the company has been toured in the UK, Netherlands, Spain, Hong Kong, UAE, China and New York and attracted local and international acclaims from performing arts, digital arts and visual arts communities. Seventh Sense II premiered in November 2012 as a significant work for the Digital Art Festival in Taipei. Following the second dance-digital-art work collaboration with Ultra Combos, Second Body received much praise and drew extraordinary reviews. In August 2015, it had its world-premiere in Taiwan and its european premiere at Ars Electronica Linz in September 2015.
