Vortex, a Special Salon of the Cloister Project
Dai Chenlian: Let me Hear Your Applause II
2023.05.21 Sunday 19:00
Location
2F, The Cloister Apartments, 62 West Fuxing Road, Shanghai
Performer: Dai Chenlian
This piece originates from the period when Covid-19 mass infection spread in China, when I was stranded in my hometown (Shaoxing) for a rest and used to go for walks along the river. I mix the sounds of the river at that time with the sounds from the history of Shanghai, using the sounds and sound fields as an index to link time and space and a clue to edit history. The personal narrative unfolds as a recurring reminder of the immediate, whilst the composite and intersecting sounds and images form an extended spatial and temporal overlay, taking us into multiple strange and magical spatial tunnels where time, events and people meet and disperse at numerous warp and weft points, allowing us to wander through the fragments of memory and reality. These fragments are in fact portraits of the group, as a tribute to those who are still alive and those who have passed away, and as a connection between memory and love in the post-epidemic era.
About the Performer
Dai Chenlian, artist, theatre director. Born in 1982 in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province. He graduated from China Academy of Fine Arts in 2004. Began to make art since 2006, focusing on the medium of theatre and painting.
“My art practice began with mistakes. My art is a record of each of my mistakes, and it repeats them. One language overlaps with another. I work with the essential elements of theatre art — story, action, sound, lighting, construction, and gesture — and break them into the smallest possible units, to reveal the condition, process, and movement of thought in the most direct way. In my work, I hope that multiple elements such as space, construction, light, oral record, image, puppetry, poetry reading, musical instruments, and dance will combine and act as an interactive entity.”
Since 2007, Dai has initiated several projects, including the Museum-Theatre Project, the Family-Theatre Project, the Painting-Theatre Project, and the Theatre-Theatre Project. Within the field of contemporary art, he attempts to break away from the boundaries of discipline and concept. He brings in stories from the news and of ordinary people that he met to create his own narration and imagination of the world. He hopes to document unnoticed emotions and events in a time of social transformation, the price that people must pay to live, and the twists and turns of their destinies.
About the Vortex
Vortex is a long-term project. We will update the content of performance lectures by artists and talks by experts both on- and offline. Following the fundamental approach of connecting local practice, theories, and context, we hope that this nonstandard art venue will become a place of torrents, flux, and confluence.
