Dance Prime

Dance Prime
Agatha Park & Mia Guo, 2018
Performance
Duration 5 minutes

Dance prime is a five minute long duo-performance concerning the burgeoning online shopping culture today and its manifestations on our psyche and body. The performance is divided into three tiers. In each tier, the performers go through the one online purchase. There are two actors: the Constant Seeker and the Shrinking Island. The Constant Seeker embodies the digital experience of online shopping which is expressed through the act of seeking, deciding, and anticipating. The Shrinking Island represents the physical experience of online shopping through acts of receiving, opening, and internalizing the delivered item. The main props are Amazon shipping boxes of three sizes: small, medium and large. They are positioned in succession to each other and become the temporal spine of the performance.

The possibility of shopping from the comfort of our homes, added with expedited delivery, has created a new culture of consumption. Delivered items are self-presents as they come sealed in a box that needs to be opened. Videos documenting this unboxing process has become popular too. Through this performance, we try to explore the psychological and physical manifestations that this new culture is having upon us.

The performance is inspired by the iconic form of Bauhaus dance, especially the Square Dance by Oskar Schlemmer, and propose a contemporary extension on his exploration on the topic of man and machine.

Advisors: Jill Johnson, Silvia Benedito