R.I.T.E.

R.I.T.E. (Remember, I Transcend Existence) is a choreographic work for two dancers, a percussionist, music and video. It starts from the figures of Qi Ye and Ba Ye (七爺八爺), the Seventh and Eighth Lords, also known as the Black and White Impermanence. In Taiwan, during temple processions, devotees paint their faces and walk the streets to embody these officers of the afterlife. The piece looks at what happens in a body at the moment it becomes someone else.

In Taiwan, those who embody these figures are often associated with delinquency and organised crime. Some Ba Jia Jiang troupes are now working to change this perception and present their practice as a bodily art that is learned and passed on. R.I.T.E. brings this craft close to the dancer's. In both cases, one appears before others and takes on a character.

On stage, Shihya Peng and Pedro Lozano Gómez carry each other, distort and merge with divine figures, in an aesthetic drawn from horror and fantasy cinema. The music starts from Bei Guan, the ensemble of drums, gongs, cymbals and suona that accompanies the processions. Alex Tran plays it live, while Alex Bouvier recreates it as digital models and crosses it with the pulse of club music. The video brings together images of processions and the dancers' own words.