Performance
Tianzhuo Chen & Siko Setyanto
Ocean Cage
Video, dance, and music crash like waves upon a shore.
What is summoned at the end of this immersive ritual?
Tianzhuo Chen works across both performing and visual arts, employing a diverse range of mediums, while dancer and choreographer Siko Setyanto has also worked extensively internationally. The pair became greatly inspired during a research trip to the village of Lamalera.
In the village of Lamalera in Lembata, Indonesia, whaling is still practiced using traditional fishing methods. For the villagers, whaling is not merely a way to obtain food: they consider this bounty from the sea a gift from their ancestors. As reflected in the diverse and elaborate rituals that take place during fishing season, whales are deeply intertwined and coexist with the villagers’ faith, community, and culture. However, the relentless wave of modernization threatens the survival of these traditions.
In Ocean Cage, the audience steps into a space replete with video footage, objects, and music. As you watch the dance of Setyanto closely, you become part of the composition of a ritual that is a mash-up of modernity and tradition. Will the whale answer our prayers and show itself?
10.19 (Sat) 16:00 ◆♡
10.20 (Sun) 16:00
◆ Festival Share Cafe (Language: Japanese only)
♡ Childcare Service (reservation required 7 days before each performance)
Duration: 100 min
⚠️ Please note some people may find the sound during this performance loud.
Please note there is no seating.
Advance tickets:
Adult ¥4,000
Youth (25 and under), Students ¥3,000
High School Students & Younger ¥1,000
Pair ¥7,500 (Advance tickets only)
Day tickets are the same price as advance tickets.
Tianzhuo Chen
Berlin, Germany and Beijing, China
Chen was born in 1985 in Beijing, China and has been based in Berlin since August 2022. He graduated with a degree in Graphic Design from Central Saint Martins and a master’s degree in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art in London. He combines tradition and modernity, high culture and subculture, and switches between fields such as visual art, theater, live art, music and video. He also organizes a club series with his label Asian Dope Boys. Chen’s objects, performances and video works use colorful, grotesque and kitsch imagery, with direct references to Asian spiritualism, LGBTIQ+ iconographies, Butoh dance, voguing and club culture. His work interweaves scripted stories, thoughts and political statements with ritualized happenings of self-empowerment related to contemporary club and counterculture. His recent theater works include An Atypical Brain Damage (steirischer herbst, Graz, 2018 and venues) and Ishvara (Wiener Festwochen, Vienna, 2017, Theater der Welt Hamburg 2017 and other venues). At Kyoto Experiment 2021 Autumn he presented his installation work The Shepherd. Recent solo exhibitions include The Dust (Dark Mofo, Hobart, Tasmania, 2021 and transmediale, Berlin, 2022) and Illuminated Spirits (TANK, Shanghai, 2023).
Siko Setyanto
Jakarta, Indonesia
Siko Setyanto is a dancer and choreographer from Jakarta, Indonesia. He began his training at the age of nine with Wied Sendjayani at the Sanggar Maniratari in Solo, Indonesia. The diversity of Indonesian culture in which Setyanto grew up as well as his jazz and ballet training as a child has strongly influenced and provided a foundation for his dance and choreographic vocabulary. He founded the DRKR Kolektif with the aim of creating a space for exchanging information about contemporary dance, a network for dancers in Indonesia, a training center for dancers and a way to support young choreographers. In 2020, he co-founded the Dansity Dance Company. He currently works as a dancer and choreographer with Eun Me Ahn Company in South Korea and regularly with Gabber Modus Operandi. He has been a member of the Jakarta Arts Council Dance Committee from 2020-2023.
Direction: Tianzhuo Chen
Choreography & Performance: Siko Setyanto
Live Music: Kadapat, Nova Ruth
Costume: Chenting Yu
Make-up: Una Ryu
Textile Design: Diane Esnault
Lighting Design (Kyoto) : Akihiko Tanida
Sound Design: Martin Ortiz
Technical Director: Francisca Marques
Technical Production: Paul Mede
Production Assistant: Diane Esnault
Production and Management: partner in crime
Ocean Cage is a production of partner in crime and Tianzhuo Chen.
Co-produced by Kyoto Experiment, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Arsenic Lausanne, Kampnagel and tanzhaus NRW.
With the cooperation of Funded by the Capital Culture Fund Berlin
Performance in Kyoto supported by Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan | Japan Arts Council
Presented by Kyoto Experiment
