Ke Yu-fang
As an artist, Ke Yu Fang looks at how time and its contexts leave imprints on one’s daily lives and bodies. Keeping self-awareness and self-care at the core of her practice, she highlights life traces and her own development. In her works, she often draws on objects that mark human growth and movement, such as white powder, a living butterfly, bottled water, shoes, a piece of elastic fabric, city creation and sand.
Ke Yu-fang
As an artist, Ke Yu Fang looks at how time and its contexts leave imprints on one’s daily lives and bodies. Keeping self-awareness and self-care at the core of her practice, she highlights life traces and her own development. In her works, she often draws on objects that mark human growth and movement, such as white powder, a living butterfly, bottled water, shoes, a piece of elastic fabric, city creation and sand.
Undulating Shape 波動形體
City Murmur 城市心音
Dramaturg's Notes
The COVID-19 pandemic that resulted in lock-downs, gave a sense of entrapment especially for movement artists. This cannot be forgotten. As nations slowly emerge out of this predicament, Taiwanese dancer Ke Yu Fang re-traces what it means to be an artist today. Working closely with cinematographer Lin Shin Cheng, Yu Fang hopes to begin conversations about artmaking.
In Undulating Shape, Yu Fang foregrounds the memory of being restricted and confined during the early stages of the pandemic. To Yu Fang, this was almost an introspective call back to being born anew. How does one make sense of this new world order? She envisioned a baby learning to move in a new environment. The sterile indoor environment could then also be read as the only environment the baby knows of – one that potentially offers some comfort. At the same time, the indoor space is also indicative of the internal and quiet struggles that many had faced during the pandemic. The close-ups and pensive soundscape, gives the audience a glimpse into this world – with a longing for something beyond the window. Through structured improvisation and drawing on foetal-like movements, Yu Fang finds her own rhythm and comfort.
In stark contrast, City Murmur floods the audience with soundscapes, moving images and poetic texts. Each adds to the discourse of multiple voices. When taken as a continuation of the other film, Yu Fang questions how a body - and artist – could understand the new environment. What can one do in this new-found space with freedom of movement? If the body is the condition for urban spaces, how does interacting with the city’s nooks, crannies and overlooked spaces, encourage one to re-evaluate the relationship between human and urban architecture? How can the artist subtly transform the quality of these somewhat recognisable spaces we see?
Listening to the echoes of both films, could the quiet and personal conversation with one’s self, become a necessary incubation for an artist? How does that shape one’s artistry and ignite conversations with the larger world?
About Artist(s)
Ke Yu-fang
Ke Yu-Fang is an individual artist, based in Taiwan. She regards body art as her core focus in creativity and performance, as well as teaching. She began to learn ballet, modern dance, Chinese dance and improvisation through senior high school to college. In 2018, she graduated from National Taiwan University of art, dance department.
After graduating, she has participated in many projects including theater dance, exhibitions, site-specific art, community art, video art, live art and so on. In recent years, her cooperative projects includes: C-Lab Play Arts Festival– All-Purpose Humanity(2022), Taipei Fringe Festival– Wang Yi Fang Forgot you and forgot myself: Sundowning(2022), Kaohsiung Spring Arts Festival-Blooming Grass Cooperative Follower, Weiwuying Circus Platform-Open Studio Circus Artists Online Residency 2.0(2021), and Acid House Chain Reaction-Empowerment of Performance Art(2020).
In her works, what she focuses on is the intersections between life, city and time. Recent creations include her 2019 work, One Third, a production describing the departure of life and appearance of spirit that was performed at the Taipei Fringe Festival. Wade In Time, a theater work about the stay-at-home experience in Taiwan, performed at the 2021 Stray Birds Dance Platform. In 2022, she continued her research in Raw Ground Project, and made two video works including Undulating Shape and City Murmur.
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