When you sit down in a theatre and there are five people at the back of the stage laptops, you think: what technical wizardry is about to happen? The wizardry comes, and it’s pretty cosmic when it does.
But Chieh-hua Hsieh’s Second Body, the opening show of London’s first major Taiwanese contemporary arts festival, is a slow burn. To start: darkness. The sound of wind, the circling of footsteps, the squeak of rubber soles. It’s a clever invitation to focus our attention, shut out the outside world. Centre stage, there’s a woman (Ting-Ting Chao), in nude thong and blond wig, not exactly human. We watch her test out this body she has, a slow exercise in oiling every hinge, axle and socket; fingers articulated, toes splayed, sculpted shoulder blades like alien protrusions under her skin. The naked body is vulnerable and yet impermeable, exposed and yet invisible as a person.
So you have a strong introduction. And we know we’re working towards some kind of techy climax. But what do you put in the middle? This is the choreographer’s conundrum. Projections spread across the floor, looking like dappled light, shimmering reflections on water, then becoming a grid-like map of city streets – this tension between the organic, the human-made and the digital permeates the performance.
Eventually it all pays off, when the images on the floor are seemingly sucked up on to Chao’s body and she becomes a kind of vibrating energy force, consumed by flickering images that turn her skin into blistering lava, the burning surface of the sun, fireworks and exploding stars, metallic mercury or a shapeshifting X-Man. It’s incredible to watch (and a jolt at the end when the impressively controlled and concentrated Chao takes a bow and reverts into a smiling, real person). Is this the human body as a vessel for technological possibility, a chip-in-the-brain endgame, an inevitable blending of organic and synthetic life – or just a really cool visual effect? It is certainly an accurate demonstration of Taiwan’s identity as a tech-driven economy with a progressive arts scene.
• At The Coronet theatre, London, until 13 April. Taiwan festival continues until 27 April.
