The Allure of Matter

Ongoing series with The Allure of Matter exhibition, curated by Wu Hung and Orianna Cacchione at the Smart Museum of Art and Wrightwood 659

Score for an Unfinished Dance, 21 March 2020

Black Flame, live virtual performance with original a cappella music, premiered 12 June 2020

Merely a Mistake: A Score for your Door, community video project, July-August 2020

Transformation, three performances inspired by Yin Xiuzhen’s Transformation (1997), October 2020

Transformation: iterations, live performances with projection, October 2020–

Transformation: iteration 0 {screentest}, October 29, 2020 at DePaul University

Transformation: iteration 1, November 13–14, 2020, Bridge Dance Festival, Links Hall

Transformation: iteration 2, March 5–6, 2021, Midwest Regional Alternative Dance Festival

Press

“Dancer, choreographer and frequent Smart collaborator Irene Hsiao planned a performance in the galleries that responded to the exhibition. It was originally scheduled to premiere this month. Two days after the Smart announced it was temporarily closing in response to the coronavirus outbreak, Irene sent me a score for the performance that would not take place. In the midst of experiencing a profound sense of loss knowing that the exhibition might not be seen by the public again, reading Irene’s score immediately took me back into the galleries, watching the dancers and the artworks alike. It had a sense of live-ness that so many other virtual experiences seem to lack. The score has inspired me to think differently about the types of content that are possible and urgent in this moment. In this frenzied rush to put content online, how can we make something new? Something that responds specifically to our current lived realities? Something that can only just come into creation now? Something that enables an active engagement, imagination, ‘doing’ in some form beyond just watching?”–curator Orianna Cacchione, How We’re Adapting: Smart Museum of Art, interviewed by Phillips

“With the museums closed, Hsiao’s forced shift to isolated dance-making infused these works with echoes of nostalgia for performances that never were.”–Sharon Hoyer, “Haunt, Memory: Irene Hsiao’s Dance Films Respond to The Allure of Matter at the Smart Museum,” Newcity Stage

“The score begins with Hsiao’s e-mail to the curators, expressing with a delicate longing the feelings of so many of us whose lives and plans have been upended by a virus we cannot see but which has brought the globe to its knees.”–Brandon Sward, “Site-Specific Performances Moved Us Beyond the Black Box: Now On Pause in the Pandemic, What Comes Next for Chicago’s Vibrant Scene?” Chicago Reader

“[Cacchione] ends her presentation by reading aloud a score prepared by dancer and choreographer Irene Hsiao for a performance planned for Wrightwood659, allowing Irene’s poetic interpretation of the exhibition to help us look at the exhibition in a new way.”–Riley Yaxley, “What Has Only Now Become Possible?” ADF Web Magazine

“Hsiao drew inspiration from Liu Wei’s Merely a Mistake II No. 7, an installation created from doors and doorframes from demolished homes in Beijing. Hsiao invited community participants to shoot video of themselves in response to a score with instructions such as “Be Still; Divide Space; Enter and Exit.” She then paired the submissions and edited them, so people dance duets together.”–Kerry Reid, “The MCA and Smart Museum Provide Tool Kits for Plague Times: Yanira Castro, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Irene Hsiao Create Performance Pieces for the At-Home Audience,” Chicago Reader 

““It was such a pleasure being a part of this project. I’ve been having a difficult time finding motivation to move my body lately. Home has turned into a place of isolation and make-shift work space. The simple score that Irene provided was surprisingly healing and helped me re-shape the limitations I held for my space. It demanded little but was accessible to so much. The creation process of impromptu decisions was a delight but what was really fascinating was seeing the clips of overlapping footage with familiar AND unfamiliar faces, bodies, beings. It was a lovely reminder that we are all still connected even though we aren’t holding physical space together.”–Kara Brody, “We Support Wednesdays: Irene Hsiao,” Lucky Plush Blog 

Interview by Sharon Hoyer for “Means of Production” on Lumpen Radio, October 16, 2020 

Interview by Alyssa Gregory for On the Ground at The Dance Center of Columbia College, April 2021 (published November 2021)

These projects have been supported by Chicago Dancemakers Forum.