Dancing me from South to South: on Wu-Kang Chen and Pichet Klunchun’s intercultural performance

Abstract

ABSTRACT “Intercultural performance” elicits complicated power dimensions in an exchange between center and periphery. To address these power dimensions, this paper focuses on dance pieces Behalf (2018) and the Rama's House opening performance (2019), co-choreographed and performed by Taiwanese artist Wu-Kang Chen and Thai artist Pichet Klunchun. By using a comparative approach to uncover the other’s traditional dance training system, they cooperate to rewrite the conflicting history of performance in Southeast Asia—crossing several intricate borders. Their collaboration(s) can be viewed as a resistant imaginary in line with the “South-South” coalition scheme. That is, artists who share similar marginalized experiences under the hegemony of intercultural performance collaborate to create works based on equality and reciprocity, with respect for and curiosity regarding each other. This research explores how experiments in contemporary dance can liberate the body from the discipline of traditional cultural codes as well as colonial imperatives, and help reconstruct a new, tangible corporeality through South-South intercultural exchange.