舞者广场_Dancing Square

2016 | Theatre | 60 mins | commissioned work by the Ming Contemporary Art Museum (McaM), Shanghai.

Ergao integrated the art museum, theatre, and public urban space, and organically weaved together performance and life practice. Through interviews, workshops, performances, interactions and discussions, he documented, preserved, and studied the most characteristic and controversial cultural phenomenon in Chinese society - square dance. Four performers come from Guangzhou, Chongqing and Shanghai, with different backgrounds and experiences, who have all experienced the transition from the dance hall culture in the 1980s and 1990s to the square dance culture in the 21st century. This work attempts to outline their life trajectories of encountering, understanding, loving, and creating dance through interviews and workshops, thereby exploring and contemplating a series of issues that arise when dance deviates from the traditional artistic spaces and fields.