• Date 2018.06.15
  • Venue Experimental Theater, National Theater & Concert Hall

Hey! Lady, please look at me! —2018 NTCH Innovation Series

LIN Su-Lien

Comments on the Finalist

Lin Su-Lien comes from a background of formal dance training in Taiwan. Since 2014, she has started searching for the answer to the question: what can dance be like without the standardized aesthetics of the academic system? Hey! Lady, please look at me! serves as an important milestone in responding to this question. There are no distinctions between professionals and amateurs in the work; only “people” who have made their lives meaningful, be it an outstanding performer specializing in professional lighting design, a remarkable singer with a background in dancing, or a talented B-Boy working as a stage crew member wearing black. “People” is the highlight of Hey! Lady, please look at me! The work responds to Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps with sacrificial rites of the Ghost Festival. However, Lin replaces traditional funeral ceremonies, religious rituals and mantra chanting with fragmented verbal expressions and riotous interactions to satirize the pathological positiveness in contemporary society. Mischievous humor interspersed in the performance forms a response to the paradigmatic dance aesthetics, rendering the work profound yet comical at the same time. The selection of music comprising of Mandarin, English and Taiwanese songs, together with the overall breathing rhythm of the work, shows the dynamic cultural forces that inform Lin’s works, which always exude agitating, multifarious energies that eventually converge into unique performances.

(Commentator: FAN Xiang-Jun)


Artwork Introduction

Created for the “Innovation Series” by National Theater and Concert Hall, Lin Su-Lien based this thirty-minute work on Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. The dance starts with the sacrificial scene featuring a young girl in red, who is forced to repeatedly dance until the last moment of her life. Then, Lin’s reflection on the world after death ensues. The story unfolds after the sacrificed girl encounters three men in the afterlife, who have also been sacrificed. The performance of three non-professional male dancers and one professional female dancer is mixed with numerous English songs and live music performance. The interaction between sounds, spoken words and physical movements create a work informed with dramatic elements and movements reminiscent of daily life. Repeated backdrops, a large deal of objects, a repressive mélange of spoken words and familiar songs collectively present the observations and questions about contemporary society as well as a poetic gaze into the cruelties in life.

About the Artist

LIN Su-Lien

Born in Miaoli, Taiwan, Lin Su-Lien has been dancing since the age of eight. A multi-talented art professional with a background in dancing, she is currently Deputy Head of Les Petites Choses Production. She used to have the idea of retiring from dancing, but collaborations with other artists revealed new and diverse possibilities of dancing to her. She was Assistant Director of the opening ceremony of the 29th Summer Universiade Taipei 2017. She has collaborated with theatre directors from Taiwan and abroad, and also performed in the works of various choreographers, among whom are Sunny Yang, Yu Yen-Fang, Chang Chien-Hao, Wang Yeu-Kwan, Chen Yi-En, Liu Yen-Cheng and so on. Her recent creative output is a dance series, entitled Invisible Program. The series includes Invisible, Amateurs, and No Man's Land, which are works co-created with non-professional dancers. Hey! Lady. Please, look at me was created in 2018, and Lin has continued creating new works afterwards. In recent years, Lin shifts her creative focus onto integrating dance with other art forms to develop new meanings and results, and the process of which has encouraged her to think about future exploration through cross-cultural collaboration.



Production Team

Choreography:LIN Su-lien

Performance:

HUNG Pei-yu, TAO Wei-jyun,CHEN Kuan-yu, CHUANG Chih-heng

Creation Consultant:LIN Ching-tien

Lightening Design:HO Ting-tsung

Stage Design:TUNG Yu-ting

Rehearsal Assistant:WU Chen-an, PAN Yu-hsun

Special Appearance:WU Chen-an, LIN Ching-tien, PAN Yu-hsun,

TSAI Cheng-han, TUNG Yu-ting, JEONG Zhi-long

Production Team PROJECT ZERO Performing Arts Management

Cinematographer &Film Editor One Work International Ltd