Reviewd by Peter Crawley, The Irish Times
Colonised by Japan, bullied by mainland China and propped up by the United States, for generations, Taiwan has struggled with a fractious independence. Without burdening her graceful and personal performance with heavy political allegory, Hsin-I Lin tells the story of her mother and Lin’s own battle for independence.
Between monologue, dance and sound-installation, relations shift shape and political ties are redrafted whilst Lin’s stagecraft presents simple gestures and simpler props capable of donning a delicate symbolism a red sheet represents a wedding veil, a caesarean birth, an infant, or uncompromising restraints.
An-Chih Tsai’s ever present sound design reverberates with muffled womb-like echoes, her cultural quotations slipping easily into experimental noise art. Both performances are intriguing separately, yet without striking a sensitive balance, they remain separate.
The work of a young artist, Lin’s monologue ultimately becomes too self-involved, distancing us with unresolved filial grief. Nonetheless As-If Productions are minting a nuanced vocabulary of performance.
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