After creating works involving robots for over a decade, choreographer Huang Yi (黃翊) is set to present his latest work in the spring in the form of a coffee shop set in the future.
In the upcoming production Little Ant & Robot: A Nomad Cafe, Huang further develops his dream of having robots and dancers perform together and interact with the audience, the choreographer said.
“The coffee shop is set in the future. I have been wondering about the possible interactions between people, as well as people and robots ever since I was little,” he said. “It should not be about technology replacing people in more and more areas,” said Huang, who envisages a harmonious relationship between people and robots, in which they help and support each other.
Photo: CNA
Huang, who is also a coder, first contacted German automation solution provider KUKA Robotics in 2010 and created Huang Yi & KUKA in 2012, in which he danced with a pre-programmed robotic arm that was over two meters in length.
The 2012 production has since been performed 78 times in 32 cities and 17 countries.
For his new production, which is scheduled to premiere at the National Theater in Taipei on April 23 before touring Taiwan through July, Huang uses a smaller 50-centimeter tall KUKA model.
Photo: CNA
KUKA will be programmed to serve coffee and dessert, interact with dancers, and use a drumstick to play rhythm, with some performances designed for families and children, said Huang.
Despite the fact that he is not a coffee drinker, his new work is set in a cafe and revolves around the drink — an important element in the lives of people he collaborates with — focusing on incorporating daily life into a dance piece, Huang said.
“It will be as if people can download fond memories here. There will be moments of people meeting with each other, parting, celebrating, as well as times of happiness, which are ‘saved’ in this work and can be played again and again like memories,” he said.
Apart from KUKA’s more detailed and intricate movements, Huang also mentioned the progress he is making with the new production.
“I’m very pleased that this time it is not just me writing the program,” he said, noting how every member of the production is more involved in the creative process.
For instance, one of the dancers is in charge of all technical aspects of the production, as well as designing the robot’s automation.
Huang also thanked Cloud Gate Dance Theatre founder Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) for his support, giving him lots of space and asking questions that helped clarify his ideas and taught him to be practical.
Given Lin is about 35 years his senior, Huang, who is in his late 30s, is also thinking about the role he can play for future artists, who he said are perhaps still babies now.
Huang believes 35 years is just about the time needed for an artist to make a major breakthrough in both the arts and technology.
“Then I can offer more substantial assistance,” he said, “the person [who would have my assistance] could be Taiwanese or a foreigner. I’ll wait for the individual to come to see a performance and to grow up.”
“I’ll encourage that person to have a unique voice, to contribute to the industry and to create art for his/her generation,” he said.
Little Ant & Robot: A Nomad Cafe will be staged at the National Theater April 23 to April 25, before moving to Songshan Cultural and Creative Park in Taipei for a month-long presentation in a more intimate setting in May.
The production will then move to the National Taichung Theater June 4 to June 6 and the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts July 10 to July 11.
While Americans face the upcoming second Donald Trump presidency with bright optimism/existential dread in Taiwan there are also varying opinions on what the impact will be here. Regardless of what one thinks of Trump personally and his first administration, US-Taiwan relations blossomed. Relative to the previous Obama administration, arms sales rocketed from US$14 billion during Obama’s eight years to US$18 billion in four years under Trump. High-profile visits by administration officials, bipartisan Congressional delegations, more and higher-level government-to-government direct contacts were all increased under Trump, setting the stage and example for the Biden administration to follow. However, Trump administration secretary
A “meta” detective series in which a struggling Asian waiter becomes the unlikely hero of a police procedural-style criminal conspiracy, Interior Chinatown satirizes Hollywood’s stereotypical treatment of minorities — while also nodding to the progress the industry has belatedly made. The new show, out on Disney-owned Hulu next Tuesday, is based on the critically adored novel by US author Charles Yu (游朝凱), who is of Taiwanese descent. Yu’s 2020 bestseller delivered a humorous takedown of racism in US society through the adventures of Willis Wu, a Hollywood extra reduced to playing roles like “Background Oriental Male” but who dreams of one day
In mid-1949 George Kennan, the famed geopolitical thinker and analyst, wrote a memorandum on US policy towards Taiwan and Penghu, then known as, respectively, Formosa and the Pescadores. In it he argued that Formosa and Pescadores would be lost to the Chine communists in a few years, or even months, because of the deteriorating situation on the islands, defeating the US goal of keeping them out of Communist Chinese hands. Kennan contended that “the only reasonably sure chance of denying Formosa and the Pescadores to the Communists” would be to remove the current Chinese administration, establish a neutral administration and
Burnt-out love-seekers are shunning dating apps in their millions, but the apps are trying to woo them back with a counter offer: If you don’t want a lover, perhaps you just need a friend? The giants of the industry — Bumble and Match, which owns Tinder — have both created apps catering to friendly meetups, joining countless smaller platforms that have already entered the friend zone. Bumble For Friends launched in July last year and by the third quarter of this year had around 730,000 monthly active users, according to figures from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Bumble has also acquired the
RSS