The Coronet theatre, London
Tension between the organic, human-made and the digital permeates Chieh-hua Hsieh’s show as performer Ting-Ting Chao becomes an incredible vibrating energy force
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.
