The lived experience of belonging to a "diaspora" was once described to Andrew Thomas Huang as the sensation of having a lost limb that reaches backwards for an origin that does not exist. East Wind is focused on re-embodying the diasporic gap through the virtualisation of the traditional Chinese lion dance, utilising motion-capture performance to puppeteer lion avatars in digital space. Huang’s project is named after the Los Angeles based Chinese lion dance troupe The East Wind Foundation, who performed for its creation. The video captures the body movements of the foundation’s young, Chinese-American performers who have been trained in this tradition. For the artist, this is an important contemporary reinvention of Chinese traditional dance through the movement of Chinese descendants who have immigrated to America over the past half-century. This continuation of the lion dance is a crucial link for Chinese-Americans to re-embody their cultural heritage and identity. The virtualisation of this process creates new possibilities for the documentation, amplifcation, and re-interpretation of cultural identity in the age of digital art.
The artist’s participation was made possible with support from the US Embassy in Nepal.
Designed & Developed by: Curves n' Colors | Visual identity by: Wkshps
Subscribe
