SISTER LIN-TOU

Progressive VR and dance solo of emancipatory power

The tale of sister Lin-Tou is taken from tradi- tional Taiwanese folklore and tells the tragic story of an exploited woman. At the same time, “lin-tou” is also the name of the symbolic screw palm, whose features have been compared with Taiwan’s national characteristics. The famous Taiwanese choreographer Hsiao-mei Ho, also a Professor at the Taipei National University of the Arts, has chosen this title for her mixed-reality dance performance as a suggestive reference to Taiwanese woman. The virtual reality section of the project is initially centred around a slowly recognisable naked female body shown in extreme close up. The camera travels almost the full length of her body. From this unaccustomed proximity, pigments, skin imperfections and tiny hairs are subject to unanticipated scrutiny. The viewers themselves feel that they are moving across the surface of sister Lin-Tou’s body and reconstruct the movements with which the fe- male body coils and ties itself in knots with their eyes, slowly and calmly. The second section is a dance solo by the dancer the audience came so close to in virtal reality – now her body, her entire physical exterior, can be perceived in its movements, in its solitude, in its endless repetition of time and space. While the VR film has already been seen in Taiwan, the project will receive its world premiere as a mixed-reality performance with dance elements in Weimar.