Austin was privy to a very special modern dance performance by the Taiwanese dancer, choreographer, inventor, and videographer Huang Yi. Named as one of the “25 to Watch” by Dance Maagazine, Huang is like nothing else we’ve seen in the past thirty years, and it’s obvious why he’s revered worldwide. Prior to Austin, INK was performed at Lincoln Center in New York City to a rave crowd.
This groundbreaking work of eleven dancers who perform alongside an industrial robot, programmed by Huang, mimics the dance moves, ever so tenderly, ever so imperceptibly of the dancer whereby you have no clear indication of man or machine and who is leading whom. As the dancer outstreteches his arms, at the precise rhythm and tempo of the robot, the two merge.
Speaking of merging, the entire multimedia performance blended Chinese calligraphy against a splashpad of multiple screens to invoke smoke, mirrors, shadows, melting images like sand. Dancers crashing their cursive hand movements bellowed the background ideograms to react, convulse, spurt, burst, and bubble over into the next wave of forms.
The electronic sounds used in this performance were composed by Ryoichi Kurokawa and consisted of jarring, screeching, scratching, bleeping, beeping, pointed, jagged, rounded and circular emanations not made to be musical, rather to embody what it’s like to use a thick calligraphy brush on the texture of each stroke. The dancers, nine males and two females (both with long flowing hair) wore black against a changing black, white, and grey background.
This performance draws profound depth from Huang Yi’s collaboration with master calligrapher Tong Yang-Tze, whose expressive and vigorous ink work has long been a force shaping Yi’s choreographic language. Tong’s art, marked by sweeping, fluid strokes, inspires movements that translate INK’s tactile strength into bodily expression. Within INK, the robotic arm moves as a symbolic brush, while the dancers trace arcs and flourishes, echoing the energy and grace of Tong’s calligraphy—a fusion of motion and medium that dissolves the boundaries between human gesture and the art of ink.
The show was made possible by the Ministry of Culture of Taiwan with the Phillip Auth Ednowed Dance Fund for Texas Performing Arts. This work premeierd National Taichung Theater and the National Theater in Taipei in June 2003. In tandem with the U.S. premiere of INK, the art world eagerly anticipates The Great Hall Commission: Tong Yang-Tze, Dialogue at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Opening November 21, 2024.
