UNDER THE HORIZON
HUANG YI
UNDER THE HORIZON
Chinese folklore contends that the horizon is the frontier between life and the hereafter. Souls of the departed live as shadows across that frontier - Huang Yi endeavors to bring them back to life.
Huang and audiovisual artist Ryoichi Kurokawa developed groundbreaking video techniques to craft a world where shadows and humans meet. Driven by the worldwide plight of refugee migrants, the shadows represent humanity’s universal search for hope, home and belonging. In this breathtaking work, Huang and his dancers, enveloped by the internationally acclaimed Netherlands Chamber Choir, travel to the hereafter riding on the ethereal sounds of the human voice, seeking to unite body and soul.
Throughout this journey, the shadows are so close and vivid that their ultimate inability to merge with their human visitors is all at once strikingly beautiful and tragically bittersweet. “I want to raise awareness about the issues we face, and even if in a small way, to help make the world a better place,” Huang shares.
“If I miss a lost one intensely enough, can I find his shadow? Can I blend myself into it and be together again?”
ABOUT HUANG YI
Taiwanese dancer, choreographer, inventor, and videographer Huang Yi’s pioneering work is steeped in his fascination with the partnership between humans and robots. He interweaves continuous movement with mechanical and multimedia elements to create a form of dance which corresponds with the flow of data, effectively making the performer a dancing instrument. Named by Dance Magazine as one of the “25 to Watch,” Huang was immersed in the arts at a young age, spending much of his childhood in his parents’ studio watching them teach tango and learning to paint alongside his father. Huang has been Artist-in-Residence of the National Theater & Concert Hall, the National Performing Arts Center, Taiwan, and is widely considered one of Asia’s most prolific choreographers.
Huang’s groundbreaking and award-winning work, HUANG YI & KUKA, in which he and his dancers perform alongside an industrial robot he programmed, has opened the Ars Electronica Festival (Austria), TED Conference (Vancouver), and toured globally since 2015 including in Australia, the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the UAE.
Huang Yi premiered Under the Horizon, a hybrid opera, in collaboration with Berlin-based Ryoichi Kurokawa and the Netherlands Chamber Choir, in Holland and Taiwan in 2018. In February 2019 he premiered A Million Miles Away at Taiwan's celebrated National Theater. His newest work, Little Ant & Robot, is slated to premiere at the National Theater in April 2021.
