Fang Yun Lo & Cheng Ting Chen – TANZPAKT Dresden 2020
Puppet & Object Theatre
TANZPAKT Dresden Research Residency in Cooperation with Tanec Praha, Prag/CZ
The main research interest for Fang Yun Lo & Cheng Ting Chen’s residency in Prague is the famous Czech puppet and object theatre, both traditional and experimental. In a first residency period, they conducted research on puppet theatre internationally at the Puppet Theatre Collection of SKD in Dresden. At a later date, they will also do research on Taiwanese and Japanese puppet theatre. In Prague, they are planning to visit puppeteers as well as puppet manufacturers and ask them about their relationship to their puppets or “animated objects” and get to know the corresponding universities. Fang and Cheng Ting are also interested to research whether Czech dancers and performers were influenced by this art form in their body and stage work. After having created their first piece for young audiences LUCEO in 2017, they are now working on the creation of Nano Giants, a TANZPAKT Dresden co-production for young audiences from 4 years on, that will premiere in fall 2021. The influences of their research will feed into the work with dualities such as life/non-life, real/fiction, object/human, with references to recent debates about multiple realities, truth/fake, power differences and the emergence of robots and internet-connected devices in our personal environment. The piece will circle around fundamental questions of human life (especially young life): whether we are small or large, in relation to what and to whom, do we move or are we being moved, how is our own individuality defined, and what constitutes the value of our own individuality? With objects becoming alive and performers becoming objects themselves, with changing body shapes, sizes and dimensions, the piece will take the audience to a expedition through the theater wonderland.
Fang Yun Lo, *1982 in Taichung/TW, studied dance in Taipei and dance and choreography (MA) at the Folkwang University in Essen. She has been living in Essen since 2004 and in Dresden since 2018. As a performer she works with Stefan Kaegi/Rimini Protokoll, Cindy Hammer/go plastic company, Lemi Ponifasio, Robert Wilson and Ben J. Riepe. Since 2008 Fang Yun Lo has been working on her own choreographic projects, since 2011 under the name Polymer DMT. Most recently she created “Luceo” (Dance/Performance for Young Audience 2017) and “Unsolved” (Dance/Performance 2018). UNSOLVED is the first part of a planned trilogy on identity and migration, and the beginning of an exploration of semi-documentary and autobiographical theatre. In 2017 until 2019, Fang Yun Lo received a three-year project grant from the Taiwanese Ministry of Culture, and 2020 to 2022 she receives a three-year concept grant from the state of NRW. A long-standing partnership connects her with PACT Zollverein, further partners are HELLERAU, Cloud Gate Taiwan, TCAF Festival Taipei, Goethe-Institut Taipei, Fonds Darstellende Künste (funding LUCEO), NPN (co-production funding UNSOLVED). Through PACT, Fang Yun Lo is panorama artist of the European network DNA Departures and Arrivals, as well as member of iDAS NRW, IG Tanz Essen and TanzNetzDresden.
Cheng Ting Chen is a theatre designer and performer from Taiwan. Following ten years of dance training she studied Theatrical Design at Taipei National University of the Arts as well as Stage Design and Scenography (Bühnenbild_Szenischer Raum) at the Technische Universität Berlin. From 2007 to 2010 she worked as a theatre designer for different theatres in Taipei and was the technical director of Guling Street Avant-Garde Theatre. She also collaborated with various groups of artists in the field of scenography, theatre design and dance. Her stage sets were nominated for the World Stage Design (WSD) competition in 2009 and 2017. Cheng Ting lives and works in Berlin since 2010 and has exhibited her work at Uferstudios, Sophiensäle, Bauhaus Dessau, Ballhaus Ost, PACT Zollverein, Théatre de la Ville in Paris and at the SPRING Festival at Stadsschouwburg in Utrecht. She also went on tour with projects for the independent scene across Norway, Mexico, Taiwan and China. Her main focus is on multidisciplinary spatial experiments, visual arts and performance art in an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural context. She is a contributing artist for Polymer DMT.
polymerdmt.com
www.villa-wigman.de
www.tanzpakt.de
Under the patronage of the City of Dresden, Office for Culture and Monument Protection, the association Villa Wigman für TANZ and HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts cooperate in “TANZPAKT Dresden”. Funded by TANZPAKT Stadt-Land-Bund with the support of the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Saxon State Ministry for Science and the Arts*, and the City of Dresden. With thanks to the Volker Homann Foundation. *This measure is co-financed by tax revenue on the basis of the budget approved by the Saxon state parliament.
