Curatorial Statement
Choreography, as a strategy for organizing the body, redefines the way it interacts with the world.
Joseph Lee (#DANCELESS complex 2023 Curator)
Dance Festival - Think, Gather, Flow, Read
This year’s #DANCELESS complex attempts to mould a dance festival into a series of events on
contemporary body issues, sharing various forms of understanding, perspectives, and imaginations about
the body, space, and its cultural meanings. If we imagine the complex as a large-scale arrangement, the
movements, halting and tugging occurring between bodies during these three months will gather a crowd
who will then leave with a shared sensory experience, scattering them around the city, in turn creating
an extended performance that mobilises participants, resources and works in the city. Suppose we see
artistic creation as a translation of ideas. In that case, each instant of the live performance will be
transferred to the viewers’ memory, transformed into words of discussion, and translated into a
collection of words and images that will turn into another physical form allowing its perseverance and
circulation. If we go beyond viewing the dance and start expanding our perspectives of reading dance,
perhaps the many perspectives presented in the choreographed works will lead us to gradually expand our
imagination of physical performances in light of the similarities and differences of the local
theatrical performance ecology, the possibilities of transmedia creation, and the depth of the issues
explored. We hope to escape from conventional modes of thinking and see beyond the flat image under the
mainstream discourse to reach a more profound and fluid meaning.
If a dance festival is (temporarily) concerned with live performances, let us return to the stage of
sweat to view unnamed gestures, feel the moment, and immerse ourselves in the performance experience
grown out of the bodies. In each moment when our thoughts are pulled, new cracks in our understanding of
the world are opened, and the fires of the unknown and imagination can be seen in the unfamiliar
perceptions.