Sugar Pop Institute presents: Future Dance of Nostalgia | Kexin Hao

An interactive dancing game and public performance that activates our moving bodies as alternative archives of the age of pre-industrial hard labor.

work descriptions:

FUTURE DANCE OF NOSTALGIA

Through the research on work songs in which singing/chanting helps choreograph the repetitive manual labour, the artist tries to trace out how our moving bodies used to cooperate in the extinct activities of production. From here she questions: how do we preserve the body movements and restore our moving bodies as the living archives? Can were store it on this body of you and me, now and here?

Future Dance of Nostalgia is a dancing game which invites audience toper form the choreography that extracts and abstracts the movements found in the pre-industrial, heavy physical labour, and work songs. Motion tracking technology allows the body movements to be quantified, measured, and evaluated. Historical archives of work songs provide the inspiration for the music that renders the old tales and melodies into clubbing beats that lead the dance.

Through ethnographic research into work songs and the moving body, the project draws much needed attention to alternative historical archives of our times. The gaming technology, visual, and music, bring people closer to the past through a tangible and modern experience.

 

Credits:

Game development: Leonardo Scarin
Choreography: Kexin Hao, Ludmila Rodrigues
Music: Rachwill Breidel
Videography, 3D: Pedro Gossler, Kexin Hao
Sound mixing: Dima IbrahimWork commissioned by iii, conducted during the production residency at iii

Supported by:
Creative Industries Fund NL
The Creative Europe program of the European Union
Stroom Den Haag
Rewire Festival 2022