An intimate and personal work, CHOU Shu-yi’s Break & Break! Dance Video Exhibition is also ambitious in scope, exploring the impact of rapid development in cities and industrial areas in Asia. Chou successfully imbues his performance with both a deep sense of self-reflection and considerable relevance to the localities he explores, and indeed beyond them. The work also conveys the artist’s personal journey as he interprets his body’s response to different urban environments, uncovering new directions in his own practice. These sites and the artist’s responses to them are depicted in a multi-channel projection that provides a dynamic backdrop and a point of dialogue for a compelling dance performance. While the work premiered at a specific site, its relevance to the global experience of urbanisation suggests that it can be staged elsewhere with the use of non-traditional sites that emphasise the centrality of the built environment to the artist’s project.
Break & Break! Dance Video Exhibition
CHOU Shu-Yi
Dat:2018.06.29
Venue:Polymer Art Space, Taipei, Taiwan
Jury’s Comment
An intimate and personal work, CHOU Shu-yi’s Break & Break! Dance Video Exhibition is also ambitious in scope, exploring the impact of rapid development in cities and industrial areas in Asia. Chou successfully imbues his performance with both a deep sense of self-reflection and considerable relevance to the localities he explores, and indeed beyond them. The work also conveys the artist’s personal journey as he interprets his body’s response to different urban environments, uncovering new directions in his own practice. These sites and the artist’s responses to them are depicted in a multi-channel projection that provides a dynamic backdrop and a point of dialogue for a compelling dance performance. While the work premiered at a specific site, its relevance to the global experience of urbanisation suggests that it can be staged elsewhere with the use of non-traditional sites that emphasise the centrality of the built environment to the artist’s project.
Comments on the Finalist
Having received praises and accolades from the mainstream circle, Chou Shu-Yi took a turn and embarked on a solitary journey of introspective exploration as he travelled through Taiwan and peripheral regions of various countries. Caring not what the market desired and with great honesty, he responded to the impacts that our time and environment have created on him and modern people. In real sites outside the black box, he reflected on what dancing meant to him with the purest body. After several years of inner debate and exploration, he finally chose the rooftop of Polymer—an art community and performance space in Taipei converted from a disused textile factory—to conclude this stage of his life. A seeker who has employed dancing as his instrument immersed the audience in a performance constituted with dance and video projection in an urban cove. When his silhouette suddenly popped out, dancing with his own avatars in the video amidst the urban lights and ruins, one could not help but feeling submerged in this heartbreaking, mesmerizing experience.
(Commentator: LIN Jing-Jie)
Artwork Introduction
Break & Break! is Chou Su-Yi’s first dance video exhibition. The word “break” can mean both “pause” and “damage,” linking two different meanings in a subtle way. The title of this work refers to the state of decay when the human body falls into uselessness and the dilapidated state of land after battles with corporate powers. During 2014 and 2017, the artist travelled among new and old cities in Asia, including both China and Taiwan. From urban centers to peripheral regions, he used his body to interact with both useful and useless landscapes and filmed over one hundred videos, which he later edited into his works to recreate his dialogues with these places. The premiere of Break & Break! took place at Polymer Art Space in Taipei. Creating a dialogue through the collision between physical movements and the previously disused space, the artist performed his dance along with the dynamic video image, leading the audience into the space of the video to perceive the power of the body and dance, their presence in life and their intricate dialogue.
About the Artist
Using the body to communicate with the world, Chou Shu-Yi’s dance is his way of examining his own life as well as all the visible and invisible social phenomena. By linking the body to the environment, he consistently explores new media and collaborations with different disciplines while presenting works in theatrical space and daily environment. He has received much international recognition for his choreographic works and collaborated with both Taiwanese and foreign dance companies. His works have been featured in numerous important festivals and venues, including Fall for Dance Festival in New York; Internationale Tanzmesse NRW, Dusseldorf, Germany; Sadler’s Wells Theater in the UK; Festival OFF d’Avignon and Le Collectif Essonne Danse in France; Hong Kong Arts Festival; Beijin Dance Festival; and the National Theater and National Concert Hall in Taiwan. In 2004, he co-founded the dance company, Horse, with Chen Wu-Kang and Su Jia-Wei; and in 2011, he founded Su-Yi & Dancers to more elaborately connect arts and society. In recent years, he has been focusing on exploring the body language that is particularly Asian.
Production Team
Film Director & Choreographer | Shu-Yi Chou
Video Design | Max Lee
Sound Design | Yu-Jun Wang
Lighting Design | Chih-Heng Chuang
Graphic design | Winder Chen
Video Recording | William Lu
Exhibition Cooperation | Polymer
影像導演暨編舞|周書毅
從捷運唭哩岸站步行十多分鐘,來到民宅與舊工業聚落交錯地帶,這裡座落著藝術聚落「空場」,是由閒置二十多年的廢棄紡織廠改建,粗獷的牆面傍著磺港溪,溪水濁濁匯入淡水河,映照著不遠處的商業招牌林立,以及通往關渡方向的新建高架橋。
周書毅的身體錄像展《Break & Break!無用之地》在此處發生。在過去三年間,他從台北離開到台東生活,期間出走過綠島、鹿港、香港、首爾、北京、大同等新舊城市,在各城市廢墟、邊陲地帶,透過舞蹈回應當下地景,所拍攝的錄像經節選呈現,再來到「空場」,是又一次的對話。
移動中的自我對話
周書毅說他這幾年一直在找尋創作的「生存方式」,「突然間覺得好像有條死路。遇到死路,不是轉彎、回頭繞,就是把牆攀過去。」感覺自己與當前藝術生態的矛盾迷失,身體跟創作心態低沈的他,茫茫然間決定按下暫停鍵出走。「我還要不要做?我的身體還想不想動?如果還想動,那是為了什麼?」周書毅決定慢慢尋找「讓自己想動的地方」,從2014年到2017年間,他帶著相機,從城市的中心到邊緣,在各地移動觀察,用身體感受環境,將當下的感觸透過身體傳遞。
這原先只是休息時期的自我對話。周書毅不帶腳架,到達一地,先找到至高或至低點,成為接收環境的位置,再把相機放置該處,起身收集感受後開始舞蹈,有時也走出鏡頭外;拍攝時間通常歷時十幾二十分鐘或更久,直到身體感覺耗盡,才將鏡頭按掉,前往下個目的地。他不斷透過身體與那些有用或無用的場域對話著,到過東海岸由榮民撿拾廢材搭建的小白屋,也來到中國城市的公共場所,或是香港的人工高樓,累積了一百多個影像。三年後,他將這些影像檔案翻出,想分享的心情油然浮現,逐步發展成為身體錄像展。
周書毅稱此作為一場「事件」,「我還不確定它是不是個完整的作品,因為它只是我這三年身體跟空間的紀錄過程,當中的一次整合。⋯⋯我也不太定義它是從編舞出發或是錄像創作,只是眼睛打開、看見有感的事情的呈現。」
在無用的土地上起舞
一開始,周書毅帶著想法,和十多個場地空間包括藝廊與美術館接觸,都未得到正面回覆,「可能作品原就不適合放在漂漂亮亮的環境裡欣賞。」後來,他因緣際會來到空場,都市邊陲被人為與自然地景圍繞卻孤立的流逝感,老舊建築的畸形原生質地,都吸引著周書毅。他選取了三分之一的錄像作品,分別投影在空場建物的背面、側面、角落與樹叢、還有周圍溪流的河堤。影像大至牆面窗框,小至水泥磚格,周書毅巧妙選取空間,用其現下姿態,乘載影像對應的另一種空間處境,產生碰撞。於是投射在河堤的影像,對應著香港的人工高樓;狹小通道底端,投影著他的身體特寫;半斜對角線拼湊的鐵皮屋與屋牆切面,載放著橫斜坡上的舞動。周書毅的身體不僅存在影片之中,也出現於展演當下:高低各處空間錄像放映四十分鐘後,他現身高台,身著紅衣,對應著空間中的錄像舞動。
現場演出動作非預先編排,然而動作的產出,積累自周書毅三年來跟空間對話的當下感受,並在空場化為身體與空間的抗衡。「我知道空場即將結束,也正面臨權力關係的拉扯,思考著這裡的失衡處境與眼前風景,身體能量於是產生對抗狀態。」他感受空場環境與周遭狀態,諸如流逝的風景與各種差異衝突,試著把身體跟影像捕捉乘載匯聚而出。「那三場展演,我都在問自己:一個人到底有沒有用?有沒有力量?我收集那個感覺,在當下跳出來。」
歸零而後再出發
計畫源自個人創作與生命狀態的歸零,《Break & Break! 無用之地》的展演籌備也從頭建構。周書毅說,原本的錄像並沒有題目,直到決定展演,才深入挖掘出Break& Break的主軸,既指休息、毀壞,也有問向下一刻的思索。而「無用之地」,又揭示著有用與否的質問,以及若成為有用,誰又該是重建者?另外,如同鏡頭拍攝當下原就無預設觀眾,周書毅也拋掉所有理所當然,他不尋找實際資源,和合作多次的好友影像設計李國漢、音樂設計王榆鈞、燈光設計莊知恆等人,一同構築出展演樣貌。「當內容在討論『無用之地』,再現時,所有東西便都要從身體力行而來。我從資源想法的歸零,看看這條路可以退到哪裡。」
在漫漫採集中發現意義,周書毅說,《Break & Break! 無用之地》呈現至今再回顧,他慢慢找到還想投身付出的方向,「這會跟城市很有關,到底這些發展、非常『有用』的東西是什麼?積極的環境中隱藏著怎樣的消蝕?消逝中是否仍有生命力存在?」周書毅以身體觀看風景,也透視自己原先艱難面對的心理處境,「最終,你的身體能不能勇敢去承受眼前的風景,或是走了就算了?」
若幾年前曾經的「舞蹈旅行計畫」是一次正面積極的移動,則《Break & Break! 無用之地》也可被視為移動中的計畫、整個系列的延續。空場是周書毅新抵之地,記錄後,將續往他處,把對話展開。他用當下身體探勘龐大外在與個人生命的構築,感受並傳遞著;在荒蕪中找尋生命力,在停駐後繼續前行。
(採訪撰文/許祐綸)