Comments on the Finalist

This dance reflects on one’s subject, image production and gaze into desire. The work starts with a wriggling, crawling unknown body covered with long hair, barging into the audience scattered across the venue. With a direct stare, live streaming, seductive body language, tantalizing looks and mirror reflection, Lee Chen-Wei wanders through the visual desire and consumption of the viewing and the viewed. In the end, although the body is able to stand up from its crawl, it is trapped in making selfies and retouching images, in which the meaning of physical existence is somehow captured. The dance therefore conveys profound and powerful thinking on the replication and dispersion of the contemporary subject. (Commentator: YU Shan-Lu)

Artwork Introduction

The propelling forces of technology have created a new normalcy, in which people frequently examine themselves through the camera lens and seek public attention via social media platforms with idealized images. In the contemporary world where the Internet Barbies and Kens prevail, the seemingly thriving scene of the virtual world is, in truth, insipidly empty and short-lived. kNOwn FACE begins with modern selfie culture and extends its discussion to the construction of the self and the fabrication of image in the era of social media, along with the issues of inner lacks and yearnings that are driving this trend. The choreographer is also the solo dancer in this work, engaging the audience with an immersive performance for interaction and participation. Using the body to convey genuine perception, the work creates direct and non-evasive communication, leading the audience to witness the development of a “self,” to reflect on the contradictory longings beneath the appearances and to explore the definition of having control over “the self.”

About the Artist

Lee Chen-Wei was born in Yilan, and graduated from the Department of Dance, Taipei National University of the Arts. She is now a freelance dancer, choreographer and Gaga dance teacher, constantly traveling back and forth between Taiwan and Europe. She was a dancer with Batsheva Dance Company in Israel, and was a guest dancer in the works of GothenborgsOperas Danskompani in Sweden, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch in Germany and VOETVOLK/Lisbeth Gruwez in Belgium. Lee started her career as a dancer and is now a dancer-choreographer, who strives to convey ideas and questions through artistic creation while initiating communication and dialogue with her audience. She also keeps challenging body expression and performance approaches. Her choreographic works include Elephant(s), The Bright Side, Black Box, Together Alone and kNOwn FACe, which have been staged worldwide and toured in arts festivals in Taiwan and abroad.