Following the full-speed expansion of technology, enormous changes are affecting all aspects of life as well as contemporary art. So called “Artificial Intelligence” and genetic engineering are a prefiguration of the future that will affect our thinking and bring about an evolution of the human race.

Following this hypothesis, the work by Lian Guodong and Lei Yan (L-square Performance) investigates the changes the human body could undergo; the possible routes humanity could embark on; the new definitions or paradigms art might find.

Three dancers will compose A Poem about the Unknown using their bodies. Engaging a wide time scale, looking at life’s change, extinction, evolution. Casting a look full of imagination and curiosity, a gaze that will turn and look back at ourselves as humans. A poem written to, and about, the unknown. A message that will perhaps come back to us. An action happening in the present, in the past, and in the future.

director: Lian Guodong
choreographer: Lei Yan
performers: Fan Lu, Qian Tingting, Xu Yiming
light design: Wang Jingjing
sound design: Letizia Renzini
visual design: Qiu Yu
costumes: Zhang Sisi
video/photos: Fan Cong
dramaturg: Kai Tuchmann Kai Tuchmann
producer: Fabrizio Massini
assistant producer: Xu Li
commissioned YAP – Young Artist Platform for Dance (China)
co-producers: Fabbrica Europa, Goethe-Institut China / International Coproduction Fund, Theater im Pumpenhaus Münster (Germany), Shanghai International Dance Center (China)
supported by Beijing 9 Contemporary Dance Theatre
special thanks: Fei Yu Dance Studio, Yabin Studio, Xuelian Fang Studio, Beijing Chiao Kon Kee Culture Communication