HUANG YI SHOWCASES ROBOTIC CHOREOGRAPHY AT THE CLARICE

By Miranda Jackson, The Diamondback

Highly acclaimed Taiwanese choreographer and dancer Huang Yi came to the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center with one seemingly crazy concept: a piece of choreography designed around a robot named KUKA.

Many years ago, when Yi was a child, his family underwent a drastic lifestyle change when his parents had to file for bankruptcy. As his artist statement reads: “My family of four moved from a luxurious house to a 40-square-foot room.”

The constant moving that he experienced put a lot of stress on his parents, so much so that they often attempted suicide. In order to relieve his parents of anymore potential stress, Yi detached himself from all his emotions, a very common defense mechanism among children. He became a perfect child, like a robot, with hardly any personality left at all.

Perhaps this is why he connected so well with the atmosphere of robotics. His favorite television program growing up was a cartoon called Doraemon, which Yi explains as a “Japanese animation character and a cat robot who is always there to solve problems for his owner.” Robots became a passion of his from a very young age, as he identified with their loyalty and selfless destiny.

As an adult, he decided that he wanted to combine two divergent concepts: the science of mechanical engineering and the art of dance, as he grew up with a passion for both. His show featured four members: himself, dancer Lin Jou-Wen, dancer Hu Chien and German robot KUKA. Yi didn’t build this robot; he simply programmed it after receiving it from the company, which was in itself an ordeal.

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