HUANG YI & KUKA
Choreographer/Dancer: Huang Yi
Dancers: Hu Chien, Lin Jou-Wen
Technical Director: Yen-Ku Ou
Technical Specialist: Hao-Ting Cheng
Venues:
The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center , University of Maryland: Sep 25 & 26, 2015
https://theclarice.umd.edu/events/2015/huang-yi-kuka
Georgia Tech: October 1&2, 2015
http://arts.gatech.edu/ferstcenter/calendar/day/2015/10/01/264
Ferst Center for the Arts, Purdue Convocations: October 8. 2015
https://www.purdue.edu/convocations/event/huang-yi-kuka/
ArtPower at UC San Diego: October 14, 2015
http://artpower.ucsd.edu/events/2015/10/14/huang-yi-kuka#.VemzeCVVhBc
ABOUT:
As a child, Huang Yi longed for a robot companion. As an adult, he created a robot to dance with.
Acclaimed Taiwanese choreographer and dancer Huang Yi and his robot companion KUKA bring razor sharp precision and stunning artistry to the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland, Ferst Center for the Arts, Georgia Tech, Purdue Convocations and ArtPower, University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Harmoniously weaving together the art of dance and the science of mechanical engineering, HUANG YI & KUKA is a poetic work that flawlessly intertwines modern dance and visual arts with the realm of robotics.
HUANG YI & KUKA reveals humanity through a series of vignettes between live dancers and KUKA, a robot conceptualized and programmed by Huang. “Dancing face to face with a robot is like looking at my own face in a mirror...I think I have found the key to spin human emotions into robots,” Huang asserts.
Huang Yi and KUKA are joined on stage by dancers Hu Chien and Lin Jou-Wen.
HUANG YI:
Taiwanese dancer, choreographer, inventor, and videographer Huang Yi’s pioneering work is steeped in his fascination with the partnership between humans and robots. He interweaves continuous movement with mechanical and multimedia elements to create a form of dance which corresponds with the flow of data, effectively making the performer a dancing instrument. Named by Dance Magazine as one of the “25 to Watch,” Huang was immersed in the arts at a young age, spending much of his childhood in his parents’ studio watching them teach tango and learning to paint alongside his father. He is widely considered one of Asia’s most prolific choreographers.
Huang’s groundbreaking and award-winning work, Huang Yi & KUKA, in which he performs alongside a robot he conceptualized and programmed, opened the 2013 Ars Electronica Festival (Austria), the internationally renowned unique platform for digital art and media culture. Works choreographed by and featuring Huang have received high praise at venues internationally, including Joyce Theater; Engien-Les-Bains Centre des Arts (France); Tasdance and Dancenorth (Australia); Cloud Gate 2 (Taipei); the Indonesian Dance Festival (Jakarta); New York Live Arts; and the American Dance Festival (North Carolina). Huang’s collaboration with Cloud Gate 2 continues to tour internationally, to much acclaim. He has received awards for his work at the Digital Arts Center Taipei (2010 & 2012); and the 3rd Cross Connection Ballet International Choreography Competition in Copenhagen (2010), among many others across Europe and Asia.