After Party: Collective Dance and Individual Gymnastics

“After Party: Collective Dance and Individual Gymnastics” originates from Roland Barthes’ notes from his visit to China in 1974. This exhibition displays the works of five artists, Chen Wei, Hao Jingban, Hu Weiyi, Jen Liu and Lu Yang. Through the interpretation of different terpsichorean forms, bodies and cultures, the featured works attempt to reveal the complex political tension between ideological control of the state and the expression of individual will. They are intricately related to the rapid social changes of modern China, while responding to the transformation and variation of collectivism in dance, the resistance and dysfunction of the individual will, as well as the afterlife of carnivalesque revelries.