Ń hēng

Feminism Artist/ SU Pin-wen

The choreographic process of this piece was similar to a research project. It started with the “Naked Performance Workshop” with three major themes: naked body, body caress, and dance exploration. The workshop explored performance techniques with naked body, the relationship between the individual and the public gaze, and how dancing with naked body creates specific spaces and meanings of performance. These three themes (nakedness, awareness, and application of the naked body) shaped a personal context for the performance. In the workshop, I looked for performers with the reflective ability with these gender issues. Then I conducted interviews and try-out rehearsals, just like an academic research project, in order to find the right performers for my group.

  Whenever I told people my new performance is called “Ń hēng”, they responded me with uh-huh first, and then started to realize that “Ń hēng” is the title of the dance. I have collected three different ways of saying “Ń hēng.” In different contexts “Uh huh” means different things. Sometimes it means “I agree”, other times it means “No I do not agree.” Occasionally it just means that “I’m here.” Or, when you are having sex, sometimes you utter some similar sounds.

  I consider being a feminist is more important than being a female. As a feminist, I know I tend to continue the discussions of issues that many people don’t talk about or prefer not to talk about. These include gender differences and of course the commonalities among genders. More importantly, as a human being, I often wonder, when we face gender issues, do we have the opportunities to learn and show that we care and understand the other? I care about how feminism artists produce movements through gender/sexuality issues. During the production process of my work, I tried as much as possible to reduce the patriarchal hierarchy in choreography and in labor relations. I want to reexamine the political relationship between body, gender, female, and choreography, and to dismantle the imagination based on gender essentialism , that is, it is traditionally believed that the differences between male and female in physiological, psychological, and social aspects are stable and unchangeable. These biological gender differences are always present and not to be transgressed.

  Being a feminism artist means not only expressing feelings of female but also showing a female point of view about gender differences and taking actions. Ń hēng