Blog post
Pik Yim Yu’s rehearsals with umbrellas have a heavy base in Chinese traditional dance forms. The dancers, have knowledge, experience or are at least familiar with Chinese traditional dance, with the exception of Western heritage London Contemporary Dance School dancer whose dance background is moons apart. It is important to acknowledge the gap in cultures, and the white dancer partaking in this project raises the question for her: Appropriation? or Respect? Encountering a form so foreign to them poses the reflection of how much knowledge of the culture do they need to have to perform loyally, to understand the movement and allow a respectful embodiment of culture. This reflection is countered by a number of questions, questions that with a desire to honour the culture become sensitive. The fear of repercussion, of wrongdoing, killing the curiosity, or perhaps it is more appropriate to say, the desire to ask. My question in this is, how do we lower the stakes so that the research goes beyond the execution and enters a world of understanding. Perhaps, allowing space for a conscious incompetence (a known lack of knowledge) to dive into a wider pool of unconscious incompetence (not knowing what we don’t know) and over time, grow in familiarity. How do we become more aware of what we know, as we explore that which we don’t?
Written by Adriana Garcia Pinilla — Documenter
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