Photo by Cobie Orger
Carmen Yih and Jiawen Feng
TEXTURE OF ABSENCE: PERFORMANCE
FRI 11—SAT 12 JUL 7.30PM—8.30PM
TICKETS $30 / $25 +BF
PLATFORM ARTS PERFORMANCE SPACE
Doors open 7.00PM. No interval.
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When someone or something exits a space, the space does not return to what it once was, but rather a negative state—defined by the absence of something that was once there.
In Texture of Absence, two dancers explore the physical manifestation of absence to examine how humans experience loss. Drawing from their relationships with identity, memory, and people, Yih and Feng retrace the multi-layered and multi-generational impacts of loss, uncovering the confusion, turmoil, and unexpected beauty that arrive in its wake.
Texture of Absence uses dance with real-time interactive audio to create a soundscape that morphs with the dancers’ movement, assigning an auditory texture to absence.
At times magical, confounding, and sombre, the performance work invites the audience to absorb the concept of absence as owning a surreal visual and sonic world. In a social milieu fraught with loss of various forms—loss of identity, belonging, life—Texture of Absence is a quiet ode to the complexity of loss.
Carmen Yih was a successful applicant for the Platform Arts Performance EOI and will premiere Texture of Absence in the Performance Space with collaborator Jiawen Feng in 2025.
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Carmen Yih (she/her) is an emerging Chinese-Australian dance-artist graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts' (VCA) Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance). Carmen’s practice centres on platforming the unique perspectives and stories of young people of colour, exploring intergenerational tension, self-definition and diaspora experiences through mediums of film, street dance, contemporary dance and new media art. In 2023, Carmen was awarded the Creative Brimbank Be Bold Residency for the development and presentation of a new street-dance theatre work 'M_N'. She has presented works including 'Home' at Union House Theatre, and ‘REGENESIS’ at Amplify: Bridge, Bluestone Church Arts Space, and Club Luv, Alt House. Following her interest in Screendance, Carmen developed ‘一层一层/Layer by Layer’ (2022) and 'Empty Your Plate' (2023) for the 2022 Signal Arts Screen and Sound Commissions and 2023 Blackbird Protostars program. She seconded with L2R Dance and Sydney Dance Company, as well as co-designed Next Wave’s World+ program. As a dancer she has performed in Miet Warlop's One Song Rising (2024), James Batchelor's Gesturing, Weaving, Unfolding (2023), Alleyne Dance’s HOME (2023), and Butterfly Soupe at La Mama's War-rak Banksia Festival (2022). Carmen is a member of Burncity Waack, finding success in the national street dance scene specialising in the 1970s dance style ‘Waacking’. During her time at the VCA, Carmen was awarded the Lionel Gell Foundation Scholarship, VCA Graduate Choreography Development Award and Paul and Donna Dainty Award for her excellence in the Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance).
=w=(Jiawen/Wendy) (any/all), Naarm-based mover/artist. Jiawen’s movement is a conjure of improv, release-based techniques, Chinese Classical Dance and some grooves. Graduated from BFA (Dance) at VCA, they have in their coursework worked with acclaimed choreographers and artists including Kialea-Nadine Williams, Brianna Kell, Daniel Riley, Gregory Lorenzutti, Carol Brown, Jordine Cornish, Megan Beckwith, Lucy Guerin and Ngioka Bunda-Heath. In their most recent work, "Odd to be beings,” presented in the 2024 Midsumma program at Temperance Hall, Jiawen collaborated with Coco Li, who was their first contemporary dance teacher. This duet, building upon the immersive and introspective qualities of their autobiographical solo "Ode to Being" presented at the Melbourne Fringe 2023, delves into the exploration of relational fluidity and identity. Through the piece, they navigate the significance of shared experiences, weaving a narrative that oscillates between the realms of self-discovery and the essence of connection.
Their experience extends to the intersection of dance and technology, with involvement in Swinburne University's motion capture and volumetric capture projects (2021-2024) and working with Megan Beckwith on "Parallax" at the Castlemaine Fringe 2023, a work integrating vigorous movement score and 3D illusions. Jiawen weaves their identity into their artistic practice, and strives to challenge the norm of the way art conveys to an audience.
