Dance of Light

Dance of light (2022) originated from The Inheritance, a new media performance work by director Hsin-Chien Huang in 2014, which combined various curing-edge elements at the time of motion capture, stereographic projection, dance, interactive video etc. Emotionally intense and deeply intimate, The Inheritance is director Huang’s personal memoir of the martial law period in Taiwan 40 years ago, now historically referred to as the White Terror. It was the dark age in Taiwanese history where political oppression not only threatened personal freedom and separated family members, even brutally killed innocent lives in explicit confrontations and secret prosecution.


Eight years after Director Huang’s The Inheritance, Taiwanese artist Chin-Hsiang Hu reinterpreted the work and extended it into a new work, Dance of Light, in the style of interactive exhibition. Dance of Light combines robotic arms and augmented reality technology, to take the audience on a transformational journey from the disturbed past in The Inheritance into a lantern festival celebration full of cheers and delight. The festival ends on the same date of a tragic event in the White Terror, February 28th, 1947, when many local Taiwanese civilians were attacked and killed by the police of the tyranny regime at the time. Such significant historic reference represents the artist's vision of forgiveness and peace, of going beyond the scarred history.



In Dance of Light, the wounded past is redeemed through the power of art, transcending darkness and pain into a celebration of light and heartfelt joy. The exhibition took place in an old military camp where civilians were strictly forbidden to enter during the martial law period but has now been rebuilt into a beautiful park that all can visit and enjoy anytime. Through its creative process and artistic expression, Dance of light hopes to heal our wounded past and renew the powerful remembrance in The Inheritance into an equally powerful, positive and bright outlook into the future.